Prime Minister assures Mamata before Dhaka trip

New Delhi:  Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh arrived in Dhaka today. But the run up to his high-profile Bangladesh trip has been jittery with Mamata Banerjee pulling out.

And hours before leaving for Bangladesh, the Prime Minister assured Mamata Banerjee that "nothing will be done that will harm Bengal's interests".

The interests of West Bengal will be kept in mind and consultations with her will continue on the issue, Dr Singh told Mamata Banerjee, a close aide of the Trinamool chief said.

Ms Banerjee has opted out of the Prime Minister's two-day visit to Bangladesh upset over the final draft of the Teesta river water sharing pact which is believed to have earmarked more water for Bangladesh than stipulated in the earlier draft.

While Ms Banerjee has pulled out, chief ministers from Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram-states bordering Bangladesh-will be part of the PM's delegation.

Several agreements are on the cards but the two key ones - the transit treaty and the Teesta water pact - will not be signed.

But despite the fact that this wrinkle has appeared the very last moment in the road map of relations between India and Bangladesh, both sides are very positive.

The two nations are expected to tackle tensions over trade barriers and transit links. They also plan to resolve disputes over their 4,096-kilometre border.

There are 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi ones inside India, with a combined population of 51,000, according to a recent survey jointly conducted by the two governments. These issues have being pending for almost 40 years now ever since Bangladesh became an independent country.

The residents of the enclaves have been compared to stateless people, without any of the services offered in either country and no one to take responsibility for them.

Dr Singh the first Indian Prime Minister to pay a bilateral visit in 12 years to Bangladesh and that itself shows how the relationships have been over the past decade. Therefore, this visit is being described in various ways historic as game changer and significant visit.

Both India and Bangladesh would like to take this relationship to a level where there is an incremental increase in their cooperation rather than spectacular treaties and then some dip in the relationship.