Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will not attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony on May 30 as she will be on a three-nation visit at the time, The Dhaka Tribune reported on Tuesday. Bangladesh President Mohammad Abdul Hamid will attend the event. Hasina had missed Modi’s oath-taking ceremony in 2014 too as she was travelling.
Hasina will be visiting Japan, Saudi Arabia and Finland this week. However, she may stop over in Delhi for a few hours to meet the prime minister on her way back to Bangladesh, according to The Dhaka Tribune.
The Bangladesh prime minister was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Modi after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections. She reportedly told Modi that the mandate “is a reflection of the trust and confidence reposed on you by the people of the world’s largest democracy”.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, on the other hand, may not get an invitation to the swearing-in ceremony, Reuters quoted unidentified officials in the Ministry of External Affairs as saying. In 2014, Nawaz Sharif, who was then at the helm in Islamabad, had attended the ceremony.
On Sunday, Khan called up Modi and congratulated him for his electoral victory. The two leaders spoke about the “neighbourhood first” policy. Khan had posted a congratulatory tweet after the parliamentary election results were announced on Thursday. He had expressed his willingness to work with Modi for the progress of South Asia.
Relations between India and Pakistan nosedived after militants belonging to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit killed 40 security personnel in Pulwama on February 14. India retaliated by targeting a Jaish camp in Balakot in Pakistan with airstrikes.
Modi has invited leaders from the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, or BIMSTEC, bloc to the swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan. BIMSTEC is a regional group comprising India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal. President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sooronbay Jeenbekov and Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Jugnauth have also been invited.
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