The land boundary agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh was hyped as current Indian government’s main achievement in foreign policy but it is now fighting for survival due to lack of political support to ratify it at the Indian parliament, reports Times of India.
The newspaper in a report published on Wednesday claimed that Foreign Minister Dipu Moni is making a last-ditch attempt to salvage the LBA protocol by directly approaching the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its support in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) where it will be introduced in the monsoon session.
Quoting Indian government sources, the newspaper says Moni will meet Arun Jaitley, leader of opposition in the Upper House, for the purpose later this week.
The agreement can only be ratified through a Constituent Amendment Bill as it involves exchange of territories. The Bill needs to be passed by a majority in each House (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) of no less than two-thirds of the members present and voting.
Dipu Moni will visit India on Thursday for the RK Mishra Memorial Lecture and is expected to meet both Jaitley and her counterpart Salman Khurshid the next day.
The main opposition party — along with other outfits like Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) that prevented the government from introducing the Bill during the Budget session — continues to oppose the agreement insisting that India is ceding too much territory to the neighbouring country.
The additional protocol for the 1974 LBA was signed in September 2011 during PM Manmohan Singh's Dhaka visit.
Sources said the Indian government is concerned that if the agreement is not cleared by Parliament in the next session, New Delhi's chances of settling the long pending boundary issue will be scuttled as Bangladesh will soon go to polls. The government believes that this is the right time for implementing the agreement because of the manner in which the Sheikh Hasina government has taken care of India's interests, especially those related to security.
The agreement envisages transfer of 111 enclaves with a total area of 17,160.63 acres to Bangladesh while Dhaka will transfer 51 enclaves with an area of 7,110.02 acres to India.
While on the face of it India does seem to be losing some territory, the Indian government has in fact only converted a de-facto reality into a de-jure situation as these enclaves are located deep inside the two countries with little physical access to these by both.
The Indian government maintains that it did not just take the concurrence of the states involved (Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and West Bengal) in writing but also the "will of the people" directly impacted.
The protocol's implementation through the exchange of enclaves, says the government, will mitigate a major humanitarian issue as the residents of the enclaves have had to endure the absence of basic amenities for many decades in the absence of any such settlement.
