BIMSTEC leaders invited to Modi's swearing-in ceremony

India has invited the leaders of the seven BIMSTEC nations to the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi next Thursday to witness Prime Minister Narendra Modi being sworn-in for his second term in office.

New Delhi has been trying over the past three years to rejuvenate the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) – a bloc comprising seven littoral and landlocked countries dependent on the Bay of Bengal for maritime purposes. With Pakistan blocking most of the initiatives by the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) to expand connectivity and step up cooperation to fight terror in the region, Modi Government has been focussing more on the BIMSTEC since late 2016.

The government has also sent an invitation to Kyrgyz Republic President Sooronbay Jeenbekov, who currently holds the chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as well as Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth to visit New Delhi and attend the ceremony on Thursday.

“This is in line with Government's focus on its 'Neighbourhood First' policy,” Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said on Monday.

The Prime Minister may on Friday hold a series of bilateral meetings with all the foreign leaders, who will visit New Delhi for the swearing-in ceremony, sources told DH.

It was after the attack on Indian Army camp at Uri in northern Kashmir in September 2016 that New Delhi decided against Modi's visit to Islamabad for the SAARC summit to be hosted by Pakistan Government two months later. The terrorists sneaked into India from territory under illegal occupation of Pakistan. They crossed the Line of Control and attacked the camp of the Indian Army, killing 19 soldiers. Bhutan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh rallied behind India and wrote to Nepal – currently the chair of the bloc – that the regional situation was not conducive to hold the summit. The Maldives too joined the bandwagon later, thus forcing postponement of the summit indefinitely.

While the impasse over the SAARC still continuing, New Delhi over the past three years focussed more on the BIMSTEC, which comprises Myanmar and Thailand, apart from five of the eight SAARC nations – India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal.

When Modi had been sworn-in as Prime Minister for the first time in May 2014; India had invited the leaders of the seven other SAARC nations -Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka – to attend the ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. M Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the leaders of five other SAARC nations – Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka – had attended the ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, had not come, as she had been on a pre-scheduled tour to Japan. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Speaker of Bangladesh Parliament, had represented the neighbouring country in the ceremony.

Hasina will not be able to attend the ceremony this year too as she is set to leave Dhaka on Tuesday for yet another visit to Japan. She will also visit Saudi Arabia and Finland during her 12-day-tour. A K M Mozammel Huq, the minister for Liberation War affairs of Hasina's Government, will represent Dhaka in the ceremony in New Delhi. It is also not clear if Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Thailand, and Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor and de facto Head of Government of Myanmar, themselves, will be able to visit New Delhi on Thursday or send representatives.

Modi received a congratulatory call from Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday. New Delhi, however, did not extend an invitation to him as it would have raised questions on the credibility of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which had put Modi Government's "strong response" to export of terrorism from Pakistan to India at the centre of its campaign narrative for the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections.

The two Prime Ministers, however, are likely to meet on the sideline of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit in Bishkek - the capital of Kyrgyz Republic - on June 14 and 15.