(L-R) Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi
Credit: PTI Photo
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which is the main opposition of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party is unhappy with India's hospitality to the former PM who fled the country and arrived in Delhi on Monday.
"...If you help our enemy then it becomes difficult for that mutual cooperation to be honoured. Our former foreign minister (in the Hasina govt) said here before the last elections that India will help Sheikh Hasina’s return to office. Sheikh Hasina’s liability is being borne by India... Indian and Bangladesh people don’t have issues with each other. But should India India promote one party and not the entire country?” Veteran BNP functionary Gayeshwar Roy told The Times of India.
Meanwhile, India's foreign ministry said on Thursday that it is up to Bangladesh's former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to "take things forward" regarding her future plans, adding that it had no update on the matter.
"It is not appropriate to talk about her plans," spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
Hasina fled to India after stepping down as prime minister on Monday following violent protests demanding her resignation, and has since been sheltering at an air base near New Delhi.
Gayeshwar Roy also added that the party is not anti-India since the India helped Bangladesh get their independence.
"We are a smaller country, we need India for many things medical facilities, many other goods for our people, but the revenue that India earns from Bangladeshis on these on these accounts are also not a small amount,” Roy told the publication.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh's Nobel Peace Prize winning economist Muhammad Yunus was sworn in as the head of the country's caretaker government on Thursday, three days after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to quit and flee the country following violent protests.
Yunus, 84, was recommended for the role by student protesters and returned to Dhaka earlier on Thursday from Paris, where he was undergoing medical treatment.
"The country has the possibility of becoming a very beautiful nation," an emotional Yunus told reporters at the airport. "Whatever path our students show us, we will move ahead with that."
Yunus will be the chief adviser in the interim government tasked with holding fresh elections in the South Asian country of 170 million people.
(With Reuters inputs)