Bangladesh crisis: Rahul meets Jaishankar, Tharoor says India can't be 'indifferent'

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met Union external affairs minister S. Jaishankar at Parliament House on Monday and discussed the development in Bangladesh, Congress sources said.

In a dramatic development, Sheikh Hasina resigned as Bangladesh prime minister and an interim government took over, army chief general Waqar-uz-Zaman announced in Dhaka on Monday, amid massive anti-government protests that claimed more than 100 lives in the last two days.

Hasina landed at Hindon airbase near Ghaziabad on her way to London, diplomatic sources said, though it is still unclear whether the UK has granted her the political asylum she has sought. "Gandhi met Jaishankar on the sidelines in the Lok Sabha and discussed the recent developments in Bangladesh," a Congress source said.

Expressing concern over the situation in Bangladesh, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said India cannot afford to be indifferent to the developments and asserted that peace and progress in the neighbouring country is "in our interest".

Reacting to developments in Bangladesh, Tharoor said, "It is very worrying, as you know some 300 lives have been lost since 1 July when the problem started...that has already been a matter of grave concern to all of us."

"Bangladesh is our neighbouring country and the people there are our own brothers and sisters or cousins at the very least and what happens there, affects our neighbourhood in a very intimate way. Bangladesh is a country surrounded by India from three sides...so that is an extremely important concern," the former minister of state for external affairs told PTI.

Tharoor said the change of government in Bangladesh is "unsettling". The elections in that country had gone by peacefully not so long ago but obviously, controversially, because the principal opposition did not participate, he pointed out. "Now we are looking at a whole new government within months of the re-election of the old government," he said.

"This was a government with which we had close relations for the last 15 years. But that has two sides to it, on the one hand close relations with this government, but on the other hand, no relations with the opposition and the other forces. There is a risk that the alternatives that have come to power, may be hostile or relatively less friendly to India, and that too has some consequences for us," the Congress leader said.

"Then there is the question that there may be continuing unrest and there may be more displacement of people and we have had the experience of refugees coming from Bangladesh. That is the issue our decision makers will have to grapple with," he said.

Tharoor said the final concern that he has is the future of Bangladesh as a country. "We have every interest in peace, stability, return to normal life and economic growth in Bangladesh. I don't think we can afford to be indifferent. Peace and progress in Bangladesh is in our interest," he asserted.

With agency inputs