bdnews24.com : Khaleda Zia has described her first meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as ‘very nice’. Her entourage reached Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka Hotel at 3:45pm Sunday, right after Opposition Leader Raushon Ershad left the hotel after meeting Modi, on the second day of his maiden state visit to Dhaka. Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu and Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon, who head the JaSaD and Workers’ Party respectively, were next in line. The BNP chief then met the Indian prime minister at Sonargaon’s Surma suite for nearly an hour. Three BNP Standing Committee members Tariqul Islam, Nazrul Islam Khan and Abdul Moyeen Khan accompanied her. Former diplomats Riaz Rahman and Sabih Uddin Ahmed were also present. “Modi held one-on-one talks with Khaleda for about 15 minutes,” Moyeen Khan later told bdews24.com. The BNP has been hailing Modi’s Dhaka visit, after Khaleda faced massive criticism for shunning a scheduled visit with India’s President Pranab Mukherjee who arrived in Dhaka in March, 2013. The BNP’s ally Jamaat-e-Islami was enforcing a shutdown on the day he arrived. The BNP has been praising Modi, who swept to power through the 2014 polls, and claimed it never pursued anti-India politics. Khaleda had met former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh at Sonargaon hotel during his 2011 Dhaka visit. Last year, she also met and embraced Sushma Swaraj, the external affairs minister of India.
