PM Modi reaches Bangladesh for 2-day visit, welcomed by Sheikh Hasina

In two days, Modi will participate in the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh and the 100th birth anniversary of the country's first President and second Prime Minister late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Besides holding talks with Hasina, the Prime Minister will visit Sheikh Mujib's grave, a temple and very significantly a shrine of the Matua community amid the West Bengal assembly elections back in India.

As per political analysts, Modi's visit to the shrine of the Matua community is significant as the community will be voting in the West Bengal elections beginning on Saturday.

On the bilateral relationship front, Hasina's foreign affairs advisor Gowher Rizvi has tried to allay India's concerns over Beijing.

Rizvi said Bangladesh's relationship with China will never be developed at the expense of its ties with India.

"Our relationship with China is not a zero-sum game. That if we develop a relationship with China, it must be at the expense of India. Absolutely not…our relationship with China is very much confined to investments and development projects…However, even then we have been very mindful.

"We do not want to create a situation where we have borrowed more than we can repay…We have learnt from Sri Lanka, we have learnt from Djibouti," Rizvi told The Indian Express.

He added, "We know how to guard our sovereignty. We became an Independent State through a war of liberation."

Writing about late Rahman, Modi said in an article published by The Daily Star, "Despite this unflinching commitment to his cause, and despite all the persecutions he suffered, Bangabandhu retained a generosity of spirit that is a mark of true greatness.

"His progressive belief in fairness, equality and inclusiveness is captured in the words he wrote in the 1950s, 'I know at least this much: no one should be murdered because he holds views different from mine.'"