A Correspondent:
New Delhi: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will attend the oath-taking ceremony of Narendra Modi as the prime minister of India for a third consecutive term this evening.
Top leaders from Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal, Mauritius, and Seychelles are also expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Modi.
The event will witness a record presence of over 8,000 dignitaries.
The leaders will also attend a banquet hosted by President Smt. Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the same evening.
Marking the oath-taking ceremony, the New Delhi has been put under a stringent multi-layered security measures aimed at ensuring safety in and out of the Rashtrapati Bhavan during the event.
Earlier, a special flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying the Bangladesh premier and her entou-rage members landed at the Palam Air Force Station, the VVIP airport, here at 11:51 am (local time) yesterday after around one and a half hour fly.
The Prime Minister was received by Secretary (CPV and OIA) of Indian External Affairs Ministry Muk-tesh Pardeshi, Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pranay Verma, and Bangladesh High Commis-sioner to India Md. Mustafizur Rahman at the Palam airport.
During her stay in New Delhi, Sheikh Hasina will hold a tete-a-tete (one-to-one meeting) with Narendra Modi after joining the oath-taking ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhaban at 7.20pm today.
Later, she will attend the state dinner hosted by the Indian president.
Sheikh Hasina joined a dinner hosted by the Bangladesh High Commissioner to India at Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi this evening.
Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to leave New Delhi for Dhaka at 5pm (New Delhi time) on Monday and to reach Dhaka at 8pm (BD time) the same day.
Earlier on Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited his Bangladesh counterpart to at-tend the swearing-in ceremony of his government during a conversation over telephone. Sheikh Hasina accepted the invitation.
Modi will take oath on June 9 as the BJP-led NDA won 293 seats while the opposition INDIA bloc se-cured 234 seats in the 18th Lok Sabha elections.
The Bangladesh prime minister was among the first foreign leaders to congratulate Modi, reflecting the warmth and personal rapport between the two leaders.
Earlier, Sheikh Hasina congratulated Narendra Modi on the resounding victory of the National Demo-cratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha election.
“As the leader of the largest democracy in the world, you carry the hopes and aspirations of the people of India,” she said.
Modi received a congratulatory telephone call from Sheikh Hasina for the victory of BJP led NDA, ac-cording to the Press Information Bureau of India.
Modi thanked Sheikh Hasina for her warm wishes following his election victory.
“India and Bangladesh share historic relations, which have seen unprecedented growth in the last dec-ade,” Modi said.
In a message shared on X, Modi said he looks forward to working together to further strengthen the people-centric partnership between Bangladesh and India.
The two leaders pledged to continue working together to further deepen the historic and close ties under the renewed mandate towards achieving Viksit Bharat 2047 and Smart Bangladesh 2041.
