Why Khaleda didn't meet Pranab

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia said she could not meet Indian President Pranab Mukherjee during his 2013 Dhaka visit as she had faced a "life threat".

Jamaat-e-Islami had called a general strike then to protest the conviction of its three top leaders for the 1971 war crimes. "And had anything happened to me, the blame would have been pinned on Jamaat-e-Islam," she said.

This was the "game plan of her opponents" and this is why the meeting was called off, the BNP chief added.

"Today I am sharing with you the real story," Khaleda told The Sunday Guardian in an interview published yesterday.

"I had to call off my meeting with the President then as we received inputs that had I gone there to meet him, I would have been attacked. In fact there could have been a life threat. And if you recall, at that very spot near his hotel which I was supposed to cross, there was a petrol bomb explosion," she told the New Delhi-based weekly.

The Sunday Guardian caught up with Khaleda, also a former prime minister, at her Gulshan office just hours after she met Indian PM Narendra Modi on June 7.

Asked about growing criticism for her ties with Jamaat-e-Islami, Khaleda said, "Jamaat is our alliance partner and that's it. In the alliance they have to listen to the BNP."

Talking about her meeting with Modi, she alleged the Hasina government had tried to thwart her meeting with Narendra Modi in Dhaka. "The government tried whatever they could do to stop the meeting."

"Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali publicly ruled out 'any possibility' of my meeting PM Narendra Modi during his stay in Bangladesh. But then New Delhi put out the facts straight," Khaleda said. "How can you justify this?"

Without mentioning any specifics, she said her meeting with Modi was "satisfactory". "It was a one-on-one meeting, you see. I cannot really spell out what all we talked about, but it was definitely a very satisfactory meeting."

Asked about her party's widely known anti-India stance, Khaleda said, "Why should I be anti-India?"

She alleged there is a concerted propaganda by the ruling government trying to paint her as "anti-India and anti-Hindu".

"There is well-oiled propaganda machinery that works relentlessly to project me and BNP as anti-India."

India and Bangladesh have had very strong bonding, she said and added, "We recognise full well the contribution India made for our liberation. Prime Minister Modi's visit is aimed at strengthening India-Bangla ties further."