India on Monday appointed former Union Minister Dinesh Trivedi as the new High Commissioner of Bangladesh, the first time this key post in Dhaka has been entrusted to a political appointee in several decades.
Trivedi, who has served stints in the Congress and Trinamool Congress, is expected to take over the charge soon, according to an announcement by the Ministry of External Affairs.
There has been an uproar in diplomatic circles in New Delhi over the past few weeks about the selection of a particular politician for this position against the backdrop of efforts made by India and Bangladesh to rebuild relations that fell to their lowest levels ever during the term of the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus.
The decision to send a seasoned politician with roots in the border state of West Bengal to Dhaka comes at a time when the Indian side has been reaching out to the new government formed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party following the elections in February.
Trivedi (75) served as Railway Minister and Minister of State for Health in the United Progressive Alliance government. After representing West Bengal in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, he resigned from the Trinamool Congress in 2021 and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.
He will succeed Pranay Verma, a career diplomat who has been appointed as the next ambassador to Belgium and the European Union.
Earlier this month, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman visited India and held talks with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. The focus of these meetings was to strengthen relations in the areas of trade, energy and people-to-people exchanges. Rahman also reiterated Bangladesh’s demand to extradite former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been living in self-imposed exile in India since the collapse of her government in August 2024.
