NEW DELHI: India has proposed the name of West Bengal BJP functionary Dinesh Trivedi as the next high commissioner to Bangladesh. According to official sources, Dhaka’s approval is awaited for what would be a rare political appointment in the neighbourhood. Trivedi (75) has served multiple terms as MP in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and was also railway minister and minister of state for health. He left TMC in 2021 to join BJP. If it goes through, the appointment will come at a sensitive moment in the bilateral relationship when both sides are working towards a reset in ties. Following former PM Sheikh Hasina’s exit, the relationship descended and entered a period of severe strain characterised by border disputes, trade restrictions and heightened rhetoric. However, with the new BNP govt settling in, the relationship is beginning to stabilise although differences remain over critical issues like Hasina’s continued presence in India and what Dhaka calls border killings by Indian security forces. Foreign minister Khalilur Rahman raised the Hasina issue during his recent “goodwill” visit to India. Trivedi’s appointment will be significant as this will be the first time that India will have a political appointee as an ambassador or high commissioner in the immediate neighbourhood since the early 90s. India had appointed JNU professor Bimal Prasad as ambassador to Nepal in 1991. More recently, in the extended Indian Ocean neighbourhood, India appointed former army chief Dalbir Singh Suhag as high commissioner in Seychelles in 2019. There had been speculation for weeks now about a political appointee for Dhaka who would serve there with the status of a minister of state.
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