Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid has a big task ahead of the monsoon session of the parliament starting Aug 5 and he has swung wholeheartedly to get it done.
Published : 04 Aug 2013, 11:11 AM
He has to get the Opposition parties, specially the BJP, to agree to support a bill that will formalise the Land Boundary Agreement that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has signed with Bangladesh.
Khurshid is holding a series of meetings with BJP chief Rajnath Singh after he returned from the US to drive home the point that the land-swap pact crucial to ties with Bangladesh before it goes to polls.
He has spoken with the parliamentary leaders of other parties that are ambivalent or opposed to, the pact including Trinamul, officials of India's ministry for external affairs say.
The ministry has already prepared a monograph highlighting India loosing nothing if the agreement is implemented, which has been distributed to lawmakers.
The agreement, which allows the two neighbours swap land enclaves embedded in each other’s territory, might emerge as a key poll issue in Bangladesh , foreign minister Dipu Moni had warned during her recent Delhi visit.
India, however, needs to amend its Constitution to implement the pact and the Congress-led UPA government lacks a clear majority to see it through the parliament.
The BJP’s Assam and Bengal unit has opposed the constitutional amendment that Khurshid tried to introduce in the last session of Parliament and will again try to introduce this time.
But senior leaders in the party appear convinced that the pact will only formalise the ground situation and the apparent loss of some territory will be adequately compensated by gain of Indian goodwill in Bangladesh.
"This is a good chance to show BJP is a mature Opposition capable of handling the niceties of foreign policy if it comes to power," said an advisor to Rajnath Singh, but one who was not willing to be named.
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has said she would accept the pact only if the “people of Cooch Behar”, which borders Bangladesh, agree.
Analysts say now that she has won the rural polls in her state with a landslide, she might to be willing not to oppose the land-swap deal but will continue to oppose the Teesta water sharing deal.
Banerjee's government is under huge pressure from a renewed stir for a separate Gorkha state in the Darjeeling hills, to handle which she needs support from Delhi. That's an opportunity Team Manmohan might not like to let go abegging.
Analysts say if Manmohan Singh can pull off the land-swap pact, he might be emboldened to do the Teesta deal with -- or without support from - Mamata Banerjee.
Prime Minister Hasina is scheduled to visit in September. But her visit could hinge on whether India is able to show some progress on the land-swap and the Teesta deals.
“From Bangladesh’s perspective, it makes less sense for her to visit India ahead of the elections only if there something to take back home,” another external affairs ministry official said.
During her visit to New Delhi for a lecture last week, Bangladesh foreign minister Dipu Moni had met the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley. Moni later told reporters she had “requested” Jaitley to persuade his party to support the pact.
Bangladesh’s top diplomat in India, high commissioner Tariq Karim, then visited Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. Officially, the visit was a courtesy call but officials confirmed that Karim had raised the boundary pact with Modi.