Opinion | Tarique Rahman’s Tough Call: Nashta In New Delhi Or Banquet In Beijing? |
It is not wrong for Tarique Rahman to see in the mirror the soon-to-be Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Given the vagaries of power, especially in the turgid waters of Bangladesh’s politics, the rest of the world does not have that warm, personal privilege.
One, however, must not shy away from intelligent guesses about which way the leader of Bangladesh’s arguably largest legacy party will lean when it comes to the geopolitics of the neighbourhood. Whether he wins the promised February polls or not, Tarique Rahman will remain a very influential politician for as long as he is in Bangladesh and safe.
It has been India’s mistake that it did not engage enough with the BNP earlier and put all its eggs in Sheikh Hasina’s basket. The mistrust of Tarique is understandable, although it does not absolve Delhi of under-reading an unfolding political situation in the neighbourhood and displaying baffling overconfidence.
The deep lack of trust stems from the 2004 10-truck arms haul at the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL) jetty. The........