"Keep Watch": Veep On Congress Leader's "Bangladesh Can Happen Here" Remark

Guard against the narrative advanced by some that what happened in Bangladesh can happen in India, advised Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, taking a swipe at Congress leaders and expressing shock and surprise at the equivalence drawn between the two south Asian neighbours.

Sheikh Hasina, 76, quit as prime minister in the face of a student-led uprising on Monday and fled by helicopter to longtime ally New Delhi.

"Be on watch out. Efforts by some to infuse a narrative that what happened in our neighbourhood is bound to happen in our Bharat, is deeply concerning. How can a citizen of this country having been a Member of Parliament, and the other who has seen enough of Foreign Service takes no time in saying that what happened in the neighbourhood will happen in India," said the Vice President at the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur today.

Though Mr Dhankhar did not name anyone, he was apparently referring to the recent remarks by senior Congress leaders Salman Khurshid and Mani Shankar Aiyar.

On Tuesday, Congress leader Salman Khurshid, at a book release function, said that though "everything may look normal on the surface", what is happening in Bangladesh could happen in India.

Mr Aiyar had also compared the situation in Bangladesh with that of India.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who was also present at the event, said on Wednesday that he could not explain what Mr Khurshid meant but the larger message that Bangladesh has given is about the importance of democracy and free and fair elections.

Mr Dhankhar also said anti-national forces are using the "platforms of our constitutional institutions to hide or legitimise their actions".

He asserted that national interest cannot be calibrated. "It is the supreme precedence, the only precedence, and we are committed to nation being first, before anything else," said Mr Dhankhar.  

Ms Hasina's last 15 years in power were marked by arrests of opposition leaders, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent.

Protests began in June after student groups' demands for the scrapping of a controversial quota system in government jobs escalated into a movement seeking the end of her rule.

India too witnessed massive protests over the controversial citizenship law and the new farm laws in the recent years.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and his newly named interim government set out Friday to restore "law and order" after a student-led uprising and deadly mass protests forced Ms Hasina, the five-time prime minister, to flee the country.

Officials of Hasina's former ruling party, the Awami League, have gone into hiding after revenge attacks saw some of their offices torched, while former opposition groups such as the key Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are rebuilding after years of crushing repression.

In the immediate aftermath of Hasina's fall, some businesses and homes owned by Hindus were attacked, a group seen by some in Muslim-majority Bangladesh as having been her supporters.

Bangladeshi Hindus account for around eight percent of the country's population.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged "safety and protection of Hindus and all other minority communities".

More than 450 people were killed in the unrest leading up to Hasina's departure, including dozens of police officers killed during clampdowns on demonstrations.

The caretaker administration Mr Yunus, 84, helms has said that restoration of law and order is its "first priority".