Hope BJP win in Assam and Bengal won’t trigger ‘resistance’: Dhaka

DHAKA/NEW DELHI: Bangladesh Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed on Wednesday said “I hope such an incident will not happen” when asked whether he was worried about an increase in cases of suspected illegal immigrants being “forcibly deported” from India to Bangladesh after the BJP won polls in the bordering states of Assam and West Bengal. Illegal immigration and “resistance” have always been a thorny issue in India-Bangladesh relations. Earlier on Tuesday, the official Facebook page of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party quoted Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalil Rehman as saying that Dhaka would take action if such incidents occurred during the “change of power” in West Bengal. While former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s stay in India after she steps down in 2024 and the pending extradition request remain a concern for Dhaka, many in Bangladesh see the “postponement” issue as an obstacle to relations between the two countries. Meeting a delegation of Bangladeshi journalists in New Delhi, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said, “We have withstood the test,” adding, “We are working on all the tools to relaunch bilateral relations and engagement.” Bangladesh and India have more than 40 bilateral mechanisms covering trade, border management, consular issues and water, including the Teesta River water-sharing agreement blocked by Mamata Banerjee in 2011