People with knowledge of the situation said on Tuesday that Bangladesh has asked India for help in order to get through a difficult period in its relations with the US, particularly on the way the neighbouring country’s elections were conducted.
The people claimed that the Bangladeshi side has brought up the issue with the Indian leadership recently in the hopes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will bring it up with US President Joe Biden at their next meeting in Washington.
On June 12, outside of a meeting of G20 development ministers in Varanasi, Bangladesh’s foreign minister AK Abdul Momen and India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar are believed to have discussed the issue.
According to the sources, Bangladeshi officials have also brought it up with the Indian side at different levels.
Recent months have seen a deterioration in relations between the US and Bangladesh as a result of Peter Haas, the US ambassador in Dhaka, making repeated calls for the holding of free and fair general elections and meeting with the top election commissioner to discuss the issue.
Dhaka’s negotiators have emphasised the significance of Bangladesh in attempts to secure a free, open, and prosperous Indo-Pacific in their negotiations with the Indian side.
Despite being in power for 15 years, the Awami League party of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is coming under increasing pressure from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the economic crisis.
The US visa policy should be viewed in the “broader context of our government’s unequivocal commitment to holding a free and fair election for upholding the democratic process,” Bangladesh high commissioner Mustafizur Rahman said when questioned about it during an interaction at the Foreign Correspondents Club last week.
“It is entirely up to the people of Bangladesh to sustain the hard-earned democratic process, political stability and developmental gains in the country,” Rahman stated.
