The victory of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent elections to the West Bengal state assembly has been received with mixed feelings in neighboring Bangladesh. On the one hand, it has raised hopes among some sections in Bangladesh that with the defeat of Mamata Banerjee’s government, an important “obstacle” in the way of an agreement on the sharing of the Teesta River’s waters has been removed. On the other hand, Bangladeshis are anxious that with the BJP now ruling four of the five Indian states that border Bangladesh, India could escalate the “push-back” of alleged undocumented migrants into Bangladesh.
This two-part series examines how the change of political guard in West Bengal is likely to impact India-Bangladesh relations. While Part One examined whether the two countries could sign an agreement on sharing the Teesta’s waters in the coming months, Part Two explores Bangladeshi anxieties about the likely intensification of an anti-migrant drive.
Over the past decade, leaders of India’s ruling BJP have often said that India would be able to permanently solve the problem of illegal migration from Bangladesh once the BJP formed a government in the eastern state of West Bengal, which borders Bangladesh.
