West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was invited by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to accompany him during his June 6-7 state visit to Bangladesh, is coming alone and around 15 hours ahead of him.
“She will land at 8:30pm tomorrow [Friday] from Kolkata and will return the next evening after witnessing some official engagement between Modi and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,” said a senior foreign ministry official.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam will receive Mamata at the VIP Terminal of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.
Meantime, the West Bengal government’s air-conditioned passenger bus for the inaugural Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala service experienced glitches before it was flagged off by Mamata in Kolkata yesterday.
The Indian premier is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka at 10:15am tomorrow for his 34-hour visit and Hasina will receive him at the airport.
Mamata and Modi are not only travelling separately but will be staying in separate hotels and also return on separate dates.
She is the only chief minister visiting Dhaka during Modi’s visit. The chief ministers of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura are not coming, although they have played crucial roles in the passage of the Land Boundary Agreement.
Earlier on May 28, West Bengal Education and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee first broke the news that Mamata would accompany Modi during his Dhaka trip.
Diplomatic sources in New Delhi say Mamata’s decision not to accompany Modi clearly shows that she is still not ready to sign the Teesta Water Sharing Agreement with Bangladesh.
A couple of days ago, Mamata said she was going to Dhaka to sign the LBA and claimed that the Teesta issue was not on her agenda.
Mamata had earlier backtracked at the eleventh hour and pulled out from the delegation of former prime minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to Dhaka on September 6-7, 2011 raising objection to the Teesta deal. The three other chief ministers, who are not coming this time, however, accompanied the then Indian premier.
Foreign ministry officials said Mamata would stay in a separate hotel, although the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel has been booked for Prime Minister Modi’s entourage.
“It is her desire and we have arranged her accommodation at the Radisson Hotel accordingly,” a foreign ministry official told The Daily Star last night.
Political analysts in Dhaka and New Delhi think domestic conflicts in Indian politics have surfaced outside the country.
Diplomatic sources believe Mamata in fact wants to convey the message that she is a leader of her own.
The West Bengal CM had earlier said she would come to Dhaka to witness the exchange of instrument of ratification of the LBA as she played her part in the ratification of the 1974 treaty in Indian parliament early last month.
This is her second visit to Dhaka this year. Earlier on February 19-21, she along with a delegation of state officials and cultural personalities visited Bangladesh for three days.
KOLKATA-DHAKA-AGARTALA BUS SERVICE
Mamata yesterday flagged off the new Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala bus service terming it “historic” as it would bring people of India and Bangladesh closer.
However, the Volvo bus that was scheduled to take the journey could not start due to glitches, which were noticed barely five minutes before it was to be flagged off at Nabanna, the West Bengal secretariat in neighbouring Howrah district, at 4:00pm, reports our Delhi correspondent.
The bus was to have carried 27 media people and some senior officials who were later put into another bus, which travelled to a place near Kolkata airport and was waiting for the official bus to be repaired.
If the official bus could not be repaired in time, another air-conditioned bus would be sent for the journey to Dhaka, officials said.
Mamata however symbolically flagged off the bus.
“The launch of Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala bus service makes this day forever memorable and historically significant for us,” she said, adding, “this will bring both India and Bangladesh closer and strengthen our friendship.”
Another bus carrying 27 journalists from West Bengal has also left for Dhaka and was scheduled to reach its destination early today to cover the flag-off of the Dhaka-Agartala leg of the journey tomorrow afternoon.
Distance between Agartala and Kolkata via Dhaka is 500 kilometres, but it is 1,650 km if one travels through the ‘chicken’s neck’ connecting West Bengal to the northeast and Assam capital Guwahati.
Source: The Daily Star