Kolkata, June 5: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee left for Dhaka on Friday to participate in the flag off ceremony of the Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala bus service and the signing of the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA).
Banerjee, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina, will flag off the Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala bus service and attend the ceremony of exchange of instruments of ratification of the LBA and the protocol for implementing the land swap.
Modi will leave for his two-day “historic” visit to Bangladesh on Saturday.
LBA provides for transfer of 111 adversely held enclaves with a total area of 17,160.63 acres to Bangladesh, while Dhaka is to transfer 51 such enclaves with an area of 7,110.02 acres to Delhi.
“I am going to ink a historic deal. Since independence, the enclave issue has been continuing but now it has been settled. People on both sides of the enclaves have suffered a lot and faced humiliations,” Banerjee said at the state assembly premises during the launch of a book.
“We want to do a lot to strengthen our friendly ties with Bangladesh. We have already proposed setting up a Bangabandhu (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) Chair in the Calcutta University.
“While we have taken initiative to develop tourism in Sundarbans, I feel both Bengal and Bangladesh should jointly work on this as Sundarbans is shared by both Bengal and Bangladesh,” said Banerjee.
Banerjee during the day launched the “Platinum Jubilee Memoirs”, a book commemorating 75 years of the West Bengal Assembly. (IANS)
