Dhaka: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina thanked Congress party President Sonia Gandhi after India’s parliament cleared a constitutional amendment to ratify the land swap deal with Bangladesh.
While delivering a speech the Bangabandhun Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University in Gazipur, Prime Minister raised the issue.
Within last 4 days Indian Parliament’s Upper House Rajya Sabha and Lower House Lok Sabha passed the long-awaited Land Boundary Agreement (LBA). The ruling BJP’s decision was also appreciated by the opposition Congress.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke the news to Sheikh Hasina right after it was passed in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Besides thanking Modi, Bangladesh Prime Minister thanked the Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
Sheikh Hasina said that she has also called up the Congress Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and thanked her for the success of having the LBA cleared.
PM has also had a talk with the chief ministers of the Indian states surrounding the Bangladesh-Indian border.
Bangladesh shares the land border with West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
The LBA has been hanging fire since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. Not much progress had been made since the 1974 Indira-Mujib agreement.
The agreement was supposed to be signed during former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s 2011 Dhaka visit but West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s stern opposition stalled it.
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