Opposition leaders in Bangladesh were trying to incite anti-India sentiments. Their efforts gained momentum when Sheikh Hasina, who has close ties with India, won the election for the fourth consecutive time. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been silent for months, has attacked the opposition over the ‘Boycott India’ campaign. Haseena loves saree and used to use it to compete with her rivals.
Hasina and her Awami League party’s opponents have tried to brand her as “pro-India” and claimed that India helped her win the January elections. He started a campaign appealing to the people of Bangladesh to boycott Indian products. Â Â
After months of keeping quiet as the issue heated up, Hasina attacked leaders of Bangladesh’s main opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and flipped the script on the ‘Boycott India Campaign’.
Hasina, who came to power after a landslide victory in the January elections, which was boycotted by the BNP, used ‘modest sarees’ to school BNP leaders who were supporting the “Boycott Indian products” campaign on social media. Were staying.
Sheikh Hasina has praised India as a “great friend” in various instances.
“How many Indian sarees do his (BNP leader’s) wives have?” Hasina had asked last week.
Making some people laugh at the Awami League office in Dhaka, Hasina further asked, “BNP leaders are boycotting #Indian products. Why are they not taking their wives?”
Hasina tests saree on BNP
Hasina, who herself is known for her love for sarees and gifting them to Indian leaders, held a saree test for the opposition leaders.
Launching the saree-attack, he said, “Only when they burn the Indian sarees of their wives in front of their party office will it be proven that they are truly committed to boycotting Indian products.”
Not just the saree test, the Bangladeshi Prime Minister also alleged that BNP leaders and their wives used to buy sarees from India and sell them in Bangladesh.
“When BNP was in power, I saw their leaders’ wives coming to India in groups to buy Indian sarees. They used to sell the sarees in Bangladesh,” Hasina alleged.
Not only Indian sarees, also Indian spices
Sheikh Hasina did not just mention the Indian saree. He also sprinkled a handful of “Indian spices” into the pot.
“I have another question. We are importing ‘garam masala’, onion, garlic, ginger and many other things from India. Why don’t they (BNP leaders) cook without Indian spices? They have to cook and eat food without them. Needed.” Spices,” said Skekh Hasinsa
“They will have to answer whether they will be able to eat food without spices, they will have to answer that,” he said.
India boycott campaign in Bangladesh
The uproar over the ‘Boycott India’ campaign grew online, as was the case with the Maldives’ ‘India Out’. Following Hasina’s victory, a handful of incidents of protest against Indian goods and commodities were reported in February.
Dhaka markets, normally filled with Indian products, were refused new deliveries. Indian products such as cooking oil, processed foods, cosmetics, cosmetics and clothing saw a decline in sales.
According to reports, the online campaign, led mostly by Bangladeshi expatriates and people in exile in Europe and the US, boycotted Indian products.
Paris-based Pinaki Bhattacharya is said to be one of the main drivers of ‘Boycott India’.
Then Bangladesh Nationalist Party was not among those calling for boycott. Later, BNP, because of the support given by some of its leaders, joined the anti-India campaign.
Hasina, Awami League biggest Indian products: BNP
BNP has been critical of Sheikh Hasina and her party Awami League for close ties with India. It has also protested alleged Indian involvement in Bangladesh’s internal affairs and its elections and said the January elections were not free and fair.
The ‘Boycott India’ campaign, present mostly in the virtual world, came to the fore recently when BNP joint general secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi threw away his Kashmir shawl as a symbol of defiance.
BNP, which had earlier clarified that it had nothing to do with the ‘Boycott India’ campaign, now seems to be going along with it.