LeonBlack08
INT'L MOD
New Delhi: A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a historic majority in the West Bengal assembly elections, Bangladesh's foreign minister Khalilur Rahman said on Tuesday (May 5) that Dhaka would take action if "push-in" incidents occur following the change of government in the state.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)'s official Facebook page posted Rahman's statement on Tuesday, carrying a graphic with his photograph and the message in Bengali.
“Bangladesh will take action if push-in incidents occur amid the change of power in West Bengal,” the post quoted Rahman as saying.
The term “push-in", also known as ‘pushback’ in India, refers to the practice of Indian border security forces physically pushing individuals across the India-Bangladesh border. There have been several claims, many of them in Indian courts, of security forces pushing Bengali Muslims on the grounds that they are Bangladeshi citizens.
Bangladesh has long protested such operations as violations of sovereignty. As per Prothom Alo, Indian authorities forced 2,479 people across the border into Bangladesh between May 2025 and January 2026, with Border Guard Bangladesh identifying 120 of them as Indian nationals.
It is not surprising that Bangladesh’s first reaction to the West Bengal poll result has been concern about India increasing the number of ‘push-ins’ after taking power in the eastern state.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, widely expected to become the next chief minister of West Bengal, built his election campaign around the issue of what he called "Muslim foreigners" and "Bangladeshi infiltrators".
In December 2025, Adhikari had led a protest delegation to the Bangladesh deputy high commission in Kolkata, where he told reporters that Bangladesh should be "taught a lesson like Israel taught Gaza". He also threatened to prevent the mission from functioning on Indian soil.
Adhikari claimed, without evidence, that there were 15 million "infiltrators". The BJP's campaign heavily used the bogey of "Bangladeshi infiltrators" alongside the controversial special intensive revision of electoral rolls, which removed almost nine million voters, with third being Muslims.
Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam, another state bordering Bangladesh, who campaigned alongside Adhikari, made similar claims and publicly spoke of pushing individuals across the border.
Asked about those remarks by Adhikari and Sarma in Dhaka on Tuesday afternoon, Rahman said: “When the chief minister of Assam made that statement and admitted that he had done certain things, you saw that we protested. We will take whatever steps are required on that matter.”
Bangladesh summoned India's acting high commissioner Pawan Badhe to the foreign ministry on April 30 over Sarma's remarks. Dhaka described such public statements as "counterproductive" and urged restraint on sensitive bilateral issues from Indian political leaders.
This was the first such protest lodged by the new BNP government after it took office.
Rahman also addressed the longstanding Teesta water sharing dispute. The Teesta treaty has been stalled for over 15 years. In 2011, a proposed agreement on the allocation of the Teesta river's waters was blocked by then-chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who argued it would harm West Bengal's agricultural interests. The treaty remained unsigned through subsequent visits by Indian prime ministers to Dhaka.
On whether the change of government in West Bengal might open new possibilities for the Teesta agreement, Rahman was cautious. "In West Bengal, a government has still not been formed. Unless they clarify what they are thinking or what they plan to do, it is not reasonable to expect us to read their minds. Only then can we consider whether the agreement that was reached earlier can be revisited in the current situation, but for that, discussions will have to take place. We will have to do our part."
He added that the key point was that people living along the Teesta were facing a serious ecological crisis. “It is a matter of economic security. We will explore every possible option available to us. We will choose what is best. The main consideration here is the interest of our people. Bangladesh First.”
Bangladesh remains committed to the Teesta River Comprehensive Management and Restoration Project, a Chinese-funded initiative focused on dredging and embanking the river. India had previously offered to fund the Teesta project itself during then-foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra's visit to Dhaka in May 2024, a move widely interpreted as an effort to keep China out of a project located near the strategically sensitive Siliguri Corridor.
The BJP's victory in West Bengal comes at a time when India and Bangladesh have been attempting to normalise relations after a prolonged period of strain.
Following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 after a mass uprising, the interim government under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus oversaw a troubled transition, during which ties with New Delhi deteriorated sharply.
The BNP won a landslide in Bangladesh's February 2026 general election, with Tarique Rahman returning from exile to lead the campaign. India moved quickly to engage the new government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent a letter inviting Rahman to visit India, delivered by Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla at the February 17 inauguration ceremony, which foreign secretary Vikram Misri also attended. External affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had earlier visited Dhaka for the funeral of former BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia.
Last month, foreign minister Rahman visited New Delhi on what Dhaka described as a "goodwill visit", the first ministerial-level trip to India since the BNP government assumed office. During the visit, Rahman held meetings with Jaishankar, national security adviser Ajit Doval, and petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
