NEW DELHI: Shamsher Islam, a journalist working for a Bengali daily inDhaka, told T*he New Indian Express* over phone that New Delhi faces thedanger of “having put all its eggs in one basket.”
According to him, Sheikh Hasina faces increasing resentment andanti-incumbency in Bangladesh which goes to the polls later this year, andif her main rival, Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Khaleda Zia — who iscurrently in jail for graft—returns to power, “all bets are off.” She isregarded as pro China and Pakistan.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Keshav Gokhale will arrive in Dhaka onSunday on a two-day visit during which he will meet the top Bangladeshileadership and discuss various bilateral issues including a summit betweenPrime Ministers Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina, progress on thelong-standing Teesta water sharing deal and the Rohingya crisis.
According to sources familiar with his schedule, Gokhale will land in Dhakaat 4:00 pm Sunday, and hold separate interactions with some Bangladeshithink tanks, civil society leaders and the media.
On Monday, he will participate in a bilateral conclave organised by a localthink tank on “India-Bangladesh Relations: Deepening Cooperation and theWay Forward” with Sheikh Hasina’s foreign affairs adviser Dr Gowher Rizvi.He will also meet Foreign Minister AH Mahmood and foreign secretary MdShahidul Haque, with whom he is expected to hold a comprehensive review ofbilateral relations, sign some Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) atMeghna, the state guesthouse, and make a press statement.
Among other things, the two foreign secretaries are likely to discuss plansfor Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s tour likely in May, and theproposed meeting between Modi and Hasina during the Commonwealth Heads ofGovernment Meeting (CHOGM) in London April 16-20. Gokhale will call onPrime Minister Hasina in the evening.
Sources in Dhaka said the Bangladeshi side would raise issues like theTeesta water accord, non-issuance of national identity cards to the Muslimsfrom Bangladesh in Assam, the Indian army chief’s recent remarks over thegrowing menace of Bangladeshi migrants in the state and the repatriation ofRohingyas.
On his part, Gokhale is likely to raise Bangladesh’s growing engagementwith China, steps to ramp up civil nuclear cooperation and the fightagainst terrorism. On March 1, India, Russia and Bangladesh had signed atrilateral deal on civil nuclear cooperation.
Despite Modi’s assurance that it would be signed soon, the Teesta watersharing agreement is dead in the water because West Bengal chief ministerMamata Banerjee has refused to endorse it. Dhaka also expects New Delhi toexert diplomatic pressure on Myanmar to start taking back Rohingya refugeeswho now live in large camps in Bangladesh. Despite these issues, therelationship between the two nations has been “increasingly friendly andcordial.”