What Mamata is waiting for to sign Teesta agreement

New Delhi: Despite major efforts by Bangladesh to woo her, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is not ready to give her consent to a final agreement on sharing the Teesta river waters. In response to a congratulatory letter from the Bangladesh Foreign Minister on her winning the assembly by–poll in Bhawanipore, Banerjee responded customarily, pledging to “maintain present good relations with utmost care,” but stopped short of mentioning the Teesta waters agreement.

Sources close to Banerjee have indicated informally to Dhaka that she is not keen to approve the waters sharing agreement as long as Narendra Modi is ruling India. She is almost playing the same role that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as principal opposition party, did with the then UPA II government efforts to pass the Constitutional amendment in Parliament to ratify the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with Bangladesh in 2013.

After the May 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP came to power dislodging the Congress-led UPA, it wholeheartedly took the initiative to pass the Constitution amendment bill for “historic” LBA. In a rare occurrence, all political parties in both houses of India’s Parliament passed the bill unanimously. However, in December 2013, the BJP leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, categorically stated that they would not support the LBA with general elections due soon.

In 2019, Banerjee informally asked Bangladesh to wait for the general elections to get over before signing the Teesta deal. But with the BJP under Modi returning to power with a larger majority, something the opposition parties including TMC did not expect, the Teesta agreement was stalled.

Diplomatic parleys are on for Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Hasina’s visit to India, likely in early 2022. But this time Dhaka is keen to have a final resolution to the pending Teesta waters sharing agreement, which has become a sensitive issue among the people of Bangladesh.

Dhaka diplomats have also informed South Block that China is insisting on a Teesta barrage project, to be built by them. Bangladesh is working on a master plan to develop the adjoining area of the Teesta delta for storage of water during the flood season. Technically, although the barrage project appears to be beneficial in the long term for Bangladesh, given the country’s population density, any government will find it difficult to displace so many people from the River’s catchment area.

When Swaraj was External Affairs Minister, from 2014 to 2019, she had cordial personal relations with Banerjee. But since 2019, after the second Modi government assumed office, there has been no effort to reach out to Banerjee. Trinamool Congress leaders ask all interlocutors whether the Bengal BJP is serious about the Teesta deal. In 2019, BJP won 18 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal, of which most are from North Bengal.

Initially, Banerjee used to raise concerns about farmers of north Bengal regarding the likely shortage of irrigation water from the Teesta if the agreement was signed. Now, it is the other way around. Before the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, the state BJP would not want to ink any Teesta water sharing deal because it could become a thorny political issue, which would cost them seats. The TMC now blames the ruling BJP for not going ahead with the Teesta waters deal.

“Now, in our name, the BJP is sidetracking the Teesta agreement,” said an important TMC national leader.

—-INDIA NEWS STREAM