Speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad Hafiz Uddin Ahmed Bir Bikram met with Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Dinesh Trivedi on Wednesday.
The meeting was held at the Speaker’s office in the Jatiya Sangsad on Wednesday (Sept. 2).
The two discussed exchanges of parliamentary delegations to strengthen Bangladesh-India bilateral relations, the Rohingya crisis and repatriation, and sports and cultural exchanges.
Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed said the relationship between the peoples of the two countries should form the foundation of Bangladesh-India relations, and that the relationship would move forward on the basis of mutual respect and independent sovereignty.
He said Bangladesh-India relations have always progressed through various ups and downs, and that this historic relationship has changed with the context of different periods.
The Speaker said the Awami League government undermined the public’s democratic rights through what he described as stage-managed elections in 2008, 2014, 2018 and 2024. The path to democracy was reopened, he said, through the student-public uprising of 2024.
He said that under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, relations between India and Bangladesh were confined largely to the government level.
Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi said the Indian government is interested in building people-centered relations between the two countries, and that the current government is working to fulfill the aspirations of the people by building relationships between the peoples of both nations.
The high commissioner extended an invitation from the Speaker of India’s Lok Sabha for the Speaker of Bangladesh’s Jatiya Sangsad to visit India, and emphasized the exchange of parliamentary delegations between Bangladesh and India.
Also present were representatives of the Indian High Commission and officials from the Jatiya Sangsad Secretariat.