India names BJP member as envoy to Bangladesh as ties thaw
India's Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi speaks with the media outside the parliament in New Delhi March 15, 2012. PHOTO: REUTERS
India named veteran politician Dinesh Trivedi as its next high commissioner to Bangladesh on Monday, in a rare appointment of a non–foreign service officer as New Delhi seeks to reset ties with its eastern neighbour.
Ties between the countries soured after a popular uprising forced Bangladesh’s long‑serving prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee to New Delhi in 2024, where she remains. Trivedi’s appointment highlights India’s push to rebuild trust with Bangladesh as it faces stiff competition from China for influence and business.
Trivedi, 75, a former railways and health minister, joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in 2021 from a regional party in West Bengal, a border state that plays a key role in India’s ties with Bangladesh and where Modi has been seeking to expand his party’s influence in ongoing local elections.
Dinesh Trivedi has been appointed as the next High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh: MEA pic.twitter.com/zSlGHwYJPY
"He is expected to take up the assignment shortly,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement about Trivedi.
Relations between the two countries began improving only after an election in February brought Tarique Rahman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to power, replacing an interim government that had veered strongly towards China.
Bangladesh was part of India in the colonial era and became East Pakistan at the end of British rule in 1947. New Delhi intervened and helped Bangladesh become a separate country from Pakistan in 1971.
Bangladesh's foreign minister visited Delhi this month seeking increased fuel and fertiliser supplies, closer energy cooperation and eased travel restrictions, but one of the biggest sticking points remains India’s refusal so far to extradite Hasina.