Delhi bid to maintain the ties with Dhaka

India is looking to restart his edgy Begum Khaleda Zia ties with, the leader of the largest opposition party in Bangladesh, just months before national elections.

Currently on a week-long visit to India that ends today, Zia urges New Delhi to "look forward and not in the rear view mirror", as both sides try to keep the momentum in bilateral ties after elections that regardless of who holds power in Dhaka from January 2014, but some time next year are expected.

"Maybe that encapsulates the theme of the whole discussion about the last two days," Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told reporters on Tuesday.

Ties between the two countries suffered during three terms as Prime Minister Zia-the last one being from 2001 to 2006-about Indian concerns that Bangladesh was used by militants hostile to the base.

In addition, her Bangladesh nationalist party (BNP) is its support partly derived from tapping into resentment of giant neighbour India ordinary chords refusal be accommodating in a large number of areas, such as sharing water from common rivers and tax reduction for Bangladesh goods are sold in India.

In the past, New Delhi has been wary of a Bangladesh under its align with Pakistan and China.

Zia arrived here on Sunday, shortly after a visit to China.

Under current Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose Awami League is traditionally friendly towards India have improved relations.

In the past two years, the two countries agreed on several divisive issues, including combating militant and crime together and exchange of pockets of land that each within each other's territory.

They are also close to solving their biggest bone of contention-parts water common rivers originating in the Himalayas and flows in Bangladesh, which are regarded as a lifeline for millions of people in both countries.

India worries that much of this progress could be reversed under a Zia-led Government, and the current broad knowledge of New Delhi's nuclear concerns by Dhaka could hurt.

' Per historical trends, polls (in Bangladesh) have led to Governments alternating between the Awami League and the BNP, "said Gautam Sen, a strategic analyst with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi.

"It is the ambition of the Indian authorities to measure the likely attitude of Begum Khaleda Zia, in the case of the GNP return to power, on continuation of cooperation in the areas where a high degree of mutual understanding has been reached."

India broke away from Pakistan after the birth of Bangladesh in 1971, but relations had dipped in the past decade with an increase of the influence of the army and the Islamist groups, which are more to China and Pakistan than New Delhi be tilted.

Indian officials often accuse Bangladesh forces of helping Bangladesh illegally across the border porous 4,000 km with India. This is denied by Dhaka.