As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Bangladesh on Friday to mark the 50th anniversary of the neighbouring nation’s freedom in 1971, it will be his first foreign visit after a full 496 days — the longest gap between two of his foreign visits.
His last foreign trip was to Brazil from November 13 to 15, 2019. Besides Bangladesh, Modi is expected to visit Brussels for the European Union-India summit (May 8), and to Cornwall, United Kingdom, from June 11 to 13, to attend the G-7 grouping where India is a special invitee (June 11-13).
Bangladesh has invited four other heads of State from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives to join the celebrations marking 50 years of its independence, but Modi will be the only leader to join. India and Bangladesh will sign several agreements and unveil new measures to boost people-to-people contacts.
In his departure statement, Modi said, “I am happy that my first foreign visit after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic will be to our friendly neighbouring country, with which India shares deep cultural, linguistic and people-to-people ties. I look forward to visiting Bangabandhu’s Samadhi in Tungipara to pay my respects to his memory.” The PM said he also looks forward to offering prayers to Goddess Kali at the ancient Jashoreshwari Kali Temple, one of the 51 Shaktipeeths in the Puranic tradition.
“I will be having substantive discussions with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, following our very productive virtual meeting in December last year. I also look forward to my meeting with President Abdul Hamid, and to interactions with other Bangladeshi dignitaries,” Modi said.
As per the details of the PM’s foreign and domestic visits on pmindia.gov.in, the largest gap so far between his two foreign trips was 158 days when he visited Sri Lanka in May 2017 after he went to Japan in November 2016.
Before this, the longest gap was of 102 days between Modi’s visit to Nepal to attend the SAARC summit between November 25-27 in 2014 and then to Seychelles on March 10, 2015. And, prior to that, there was a gap of 94 days after his unscheduled visit to Pakistan on December 25 last year and then his travel to Saudi Arabia after three months on March 29 in 2017.
As per data since May 26, 2014, Modi has made 59 foreign trips, visiting 60 countries including the visits to USA to attend the UN General Assembly, to Asian countries, following his Neighbourhood First and Act East policies. Modi has visited USA six times and five times to China, France and Russia. He went to Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates thrice and to Germany, Japan, Nepal and Singapore four times.
Modi has visited only once Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Fiji, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Laos, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Mozambique, Netherlands, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Spain, Sweden, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda and Vietnam during his tenure. He made foreign visits twice to Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs data, an expenditure of Rs 446.52 crore has been incurred on the foreign visits of PM Modi in the last five year. As per details, a cost of Rs 121.85 crore was incurred in 2015-16 while an expenditure of Rs 78.52 crore was incurred in 2016-17. In 2017-18, a cost of Rs 99.90 crore was incurred while in 2018-19, an expenditure of Rs 100.02 crore was incurred. In 2019-20, a cost of Rs 46.23 crore has been incurred on the Prime Minister’s foreign visits, it said.