Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that he congratulated Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Tarique Rahman on the victory of his party in the country’s 13th national parliamentary election.
He added that he also reaffirmed India’s commitment to peace and progress in the region in a phone conversation with Rahman.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance won 212 seats of the 299 constituencies that went to polls in the election a day earlier. The alliance led by the Islamist party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, emerged as the main Opposition with 77 seats.
This was the first national election since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government was ousted in 2024.
Ties between New Delhi and Dhaka have been strained since Hasina fled to India in August 2024 after several weeks of widespread student-led protests against her Awami League government. She had been in power for 16 years.
After her ouster, Nobel laureate economist Muhammad Yunus took over as the head of Bangladesh’s interim government. After Thursday’s elections, the interim government’s term will come to an end.
On Friday, Modi was the first national leader to congratulate Rahman on the win.
He said in a social media post that he had conveyed to Rahman his “best wishes and support in his endeavour to fulfil the aspirations of the people of Bangladesh”.
“As two close neighbours with deep-rooted historical and cultural ties, I reaffirmed India’s continued commitment to the peace, progress and prosperity of both our peoples,” added the Indian prime minister.
After Modi expressed his wishes to Rahman, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party thanked India and the prime minister for recognising the verdict of the country’s election and said that it hoped that the relations between the two countries would be strengthened under the new government.
Nazrul Islam Khan, the party’s chief coordinator of the election, said: “We believe that under the leadership of our leader…Tarique Rahman, the relation between these two countries and the people of these two countries will be strengthened.”
Bangladesh has been demanding that India extradite Hasina after a tribunal in that country sentenced her to death for alleged crimes against humanity. Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal held Hasina guilty of having ordered a deadly crackdown on the protests against her government.
Relations between India and Bangladesh further strained in recent weeks amid unrest following the death of student leader Sharif Osman Bin Hadi on December 18. Hadi had been a prominent figure in the July 2024 protests that led to the ouster of the Hasina government.
His death triggered protests, vandalism and attacks in Bangladesh. Several attacks on minority communities have also been reported in Bangladesh, which led to demonstrations in India as well.
In December, New Delhi and Dhaka had summoned each other’s envoys to convey concerns over the situation.
On January 9, India accused Bangladesh of downplaying a “disturbing pattern of recurring attacks on minorities” and urged Dhaka to act “swiftly and firmly” against communal violence.
Earlier in December, New Delhi also condemned the lynching of a Hindu man in Bangladesh, saying that the “unremitting hostility” against minorities in the country was concerning.
Dipu Chandra Das, a factory worker, was beaten to death by a mob in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district on December 18, after which his body was allegedly tied to a tree and set on fire. Eighteen persons have been taken into custody for the lynching.
Jaiswal had said at the time that continuing hostilities against minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, Christians and Buddhists, at the hands of extremists was a matter of great concern.
Two days later, Dhaka had rejected New Delhi’s remarks and described them as “inaccurate, exaggerated or motivated”.
SM Mahbubul Alam, the spokesperson for the Bangladeshi foreign ministry, had said at the time that the statements “misrepresent the country’s longstanding tradition of communal harmony”.
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