Bangladesh made a formal request earlier this week for a meeting between Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, both of whom will be in New York for the UN General Assembly later this month.

However, New Delhi has yet to make a decision, the Hindustan Times reported on Saturday.    

In an interview to PTI last Sunday, Yunus criticized ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for commenting on developments in Bangladesh while in India.

He also said India should move beyond the “narrative” that every political party other than Hasina’s Awami League is “Islamist”.

“If India wants to keep her until the time Bangladesh wants her back, the condition would be that she has to keep quiet,” Yunus said.

“Sitting in India, she is speaking and giving instructions. No one likes it. It’s not good for us or for India,” Yunus said.

The Bangladeshi side has told India “quite firmly” that Hasina should keep quiet as “she has been given shelter there and she is campaigning from there”.

There has been no comment so far from the Indian side to Yunus’s remarks. However, the people cited above said such comments weren’t conducive to better relations.

The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a meeting between Modi and Yunus appears unlikely following comments by Yunus in an interview with an Indian media outlet earlier this week.

Prof Yunus’s remarks had not gone down well in New Delhi, they said.

bd-pratidin/GR