Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has dismissed concerns that the new citizenship law and National Register for Citizens (NRC) may affect the country's ties with Bangladesh, reports Indian media.
"Ties with Bangladesh have strengthened. We have worked with Bangladesh and solved many issues dating back to partition," DNA India quoted him saying on Sunday (Dec 22).
Following days of violent, sometimes deadly protests across India against a new citizenship law, Modi led a rally for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in capital Delhi.
"We have worked with Bangladesh and solved many issues dating back to partition. Land boundary issue, connectivity, railway, new waterways, expansion of broadband, we are working with Bangladesh shoulder to shoulder," he told the rally.
His remarks come days after Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan called off visits to India after the Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill.
The law promises citizenship to "illegal immigrants" belonging to minority communities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who fled religious persecution in the three countries.
While explaining its position on the persecution of minorities in Bangladesh, Delhi has said it was not under the current government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Defending the bill, Raveesh Kumar, India's Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, said "no bill will impact the strong relationship between India and Bangladesh."
During a discussion on the bill in the Parliament, India's Home Minister Amit Shah said, "As long as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was leading Bangladesh, everything worked very well. But once his government went, minorities began to be oppressed. I can tell you that a large number of Bangladeshi Hindus had to come here to seek refuge."
Explaining, he further said, "The current government in Bangladesh is also taking care of religious minorities. It is making arrangements also for religious minorities, but there has been a long period in the past in between, during which people came to India on account of religious persecution. This Bill is only to give citizenship to those people who came at that time."
Many high-level visits have taken between the two countries with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visiting India twice this year and Modi expected to visit Bangladesh in March next year for the 100th birth anniversary of Bangladesh's father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.