india

Updated: Mar 12, 2020 08:57 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join the birth centenary celebration of Bangladesh’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman through video conference, foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Wednesday. The PM had postponed visit to Dhaka after coronavirus scare had caused Bangladesh to defer public events beginning March 17.

Shringla told a delegation of 20 Bangladeshi journalists that the PM will also send a video message on the occasion.

A two-day-long special session of the Jatiya Sangsad (Parliament of Bangladesh) to mark Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s birth centenary will be held from March 22. President Abdul Hamid will deliver his speech on March 22 and Parliament will be prorogued on March 23 with the passage of a resolution on the colourful political life of Bangabandhu.

India had received a formal notification from Bangladesh about public events being deferred because of the detection of coronavirus cases and the larger global public health situation, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said.

This was PM Modi’s second foreign visit to be called off because of Covid-19-related concerns. Last week, India had put off his visit to Brussels for the India-EU Summit on March 13.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who took several steps to address India’s security concerns and worked assiduously to forge better relations with PM Modi, has faced widespread criticism within Bangladesh since leaders of India’s ruling BJP began talking of deporting all the people left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. She raised the NRC issue with PM Modi during their last two meetings in September and October.

People familiar with developments in Dhaka said there was also anger among younger leaders of Hasina’s Awami League party, who believe the CAA and related issues have strengthened the hands of their opponents in hardline parties. Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who served as the first president of Bangladesh and later as prime minister before his assassination in August 1975.

New Delhi has dismissed criticism of the CAA, saying it’s an internal matter, and foreign secretary Harsh Shringla had assured his Bangladeshi interlocutors during a visit to Dhaka this month the NRC had no implications for Bangladesh.