Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina attended the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India for the third consecutive term this evening. She was accompanied by her daughter, Saima Wazed, and they were the third foreign leaders to attend the event at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Leaders from Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal, Mauritius, and Seychelles also attended Modi’s swearing-in ceremony. The event saw a record attendance of over 8,000 distinguished guests. Later in the evening, the leaders joined a banquet hosted by President Droupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
New Delhi was under a stringent multi-layered security arrangement to ensure safety within and around the Rashtrapati Bhavan during the ceremony.
Earlier, the special flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying the Prime Minister and her delegation landed at Palam Air Force Station at 11:51 AM (local time) after a flight of about one and a half hours. Sheikh Hasina was welcomed at Palam Airport by Muktesh Pardeshi, Secretary (CPV & OIA) of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pranay Verma, and Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Md. Mustafizur Rahman.
During her stay in New Delhi, Sheikh Hasina will have a one-on-one meeting with Narendra Modi following the swearing-in ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. She is scheduled to depart for Dhaka tomorrow afternoon.
Previously, during a telephone conversation on Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited his Bangladeshi counterpart to attend his government’s swearing-in ceremony, and Sheikh Hasina accepted the invitation.
In the recently concluded 18th Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led NDA won 293 seats, while the opposition INDIA bloc secured 234 seats. Sheikh Hasina was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Modi, reflecting the warm personal relationship between the two leaders.
Earlier, Sheikh Hasina congratulated Narendra Modi on the decisive victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Lok Sabha elections. She stated, “As the leader of the world’s largest democracy, you are a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the people of India.”
According to India’s Press Information Bureau, Sheikh Hasina congratulated Narendra Modi over the phone for the BJP-led NDA’s victory. Modi thanked her for the warm wishes following the election victory, noting, “India and Bangladesh share a historic relationship that has seen unprecedented growth over the past decade.”
In a message shared on X, Modi expressed his eagerness to work together to further strengthen the people-centric partnership between Bangladesh and India. The two leaders committed to working together to deepen the historic and close relationship under the renewed mandate, with the goals of achieving a developed India by 2047 and a smart Bangladesh by 2041.
