Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid is leading a last-ditch effort to persuade BJP President Rajnath Singh and other Opposition leaders to support a land swap pact crucial to ties with Bangladesh before India's neighbour goes to polls, reports UNB.
Khurshid was holding a series of parleys with Rajnath to win the BJP over on the Land Boundary Agreement ahead of Parliament's monsoon session starting August 5, top government officials told The Telegraph, Kolkata.
He had spoken with the parliamentary leaders of other parties that were ambivalent on – or opposed to – the pact, including Trinamul, the officials said.
The agreement, under which the two nations swap enclaves of land embedded in each other's territory, would be a key poll plank for Bangladesh's ruling Awami League in national elections that could take place by the end of the year.
However, India needs to amend its Constitution to implement the pact it signed with Bangladesh when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka in 2011.
The BJP's Assam 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.
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said she would accept the pact only if the "people of Cooch Behar," which borders Bangladesh, agree.
The agreement's fate could crucially affect India's ties with Bangladesh in the immediate run, including a planned visit by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed to New Delhi, Indian officials say.
"This should not be a controversial issue at all," an official said, referring to the pact that, if implemented, will give Indians and Bangladeshis living in the enclaves the choice of moving into the territory of their homeland or changing their nationalities.
The matter is also diplomatically and strategically crucial. India invited Hasina, a long-time ally, to visit New Delhi before the upcoming elections in Bangladesh, in which the Awami League will face a resurgent Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
Hasina was scheduled to visit in September, but her visit could hinge on whether India is able to show some progress on the land swap deal.
"From Bangladesh's perspective, it makes less sense to visit India ahead of the elections if there isn't something very tangible to show for it," another official said.
The Indian foreign ministry and its diplomats in Bangladesh are working overtime to try and schedule Hasina's visit, officials said.
During her visit to New Delhi for a lecture last week, Bangladesh foreign minister Dipu Moni met the leader of the Opposition in the RajyaSabha, 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.
Strategically, India and Bangladesh are on the cusp of exchanging key prisoners wanted by each other through their extradition treaty. Dhaka has indicated it may hand over Anup Chetia, a senior leader of the United Liberation Front of Asom, to India soon.
