New Delhi: Dhaka is “deeply aggrieved” by the Indian government ‘allowing’ Sheikh Hasina to publicly call for the interim Bangladeshi administration’s removal, it said, calling the episode not only a breach of diplomatic norms but a “clear affront to the people and the government of Bangladesh” that “may seriously impair the ability” of a future elected government to conduct ties with India.The Bangladeshi foreign ministry’s communique on Sunday (January 25), in which it also decried Hasina’s address as risking “Bangladesh’s democratic transition”, marks another blow to an already-frayed bilateral relationship.Its statement follows Hasina’s first live public remarks at a press conference – made with other exiled Awami League leaders in Delhi on Friday – since her violent ouster by a students-led movement in August 2024.During her remarks Hasina accused the incumbent interim government of placing Bangladesh at “the edge of an abyss” and called chief adviser and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus a “money launderer” and “plunderer” who “bled our nation dry”.Her fellow leaders of the Awami League – which remains banned in Bangladesh weeks prior to the country’s first scheduled general elections since Hasina’s fall – said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia that their party has called for a complete boycott of the polls.Expressing ‘surprise’ and ‘shock’ that the “fugitive” Hasina was “allowed” to make the remarks, the Bangladeshi foreign ministry accused her of issuing “blatant incitements to her party loyalists and [the] general public to carry out acts of terror in order to derail the upcoming general elections in Bangladesh” that are scheduled for February 12.“Bangladesh is deeply aggrieved” that while New Delhi is yet to respond to Dhaka’s request to extradite Hasina to Bangladesh in light of her conviction and sentencing for ‘crimes against humanity’, it instead “allowed [her] to make such inciteful pronouncements from its own soil”, which “clearly endangers Bangladesh’s democratic transition and peace and security”.This is “contrary to the norms of inter-State relations, including the principles of respect for sovereignty, non-interference and good neighbourliness, and constitute a clear affront to the people and the Government of Bangladesh,” Dhaka charged in the statement.Friday’s “unabashed incitements” exemplify why the interim government had banned the Awami League, the ministry stated, adding that it would act against the erstwhile ruling party for “committing incidents of violence and terror in the run up to the elections”.Yunus’s interim government has called on India to extradite Hasina to Bangladesh after the so-called International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka convicted and sentenced her in absentia to death on charges of ‘crimes against humanity’ during her regime’s crackdown on the burgeoning movement in July and August. It has also objected to statements she previously made from exile to party workers.The deposed premier has rejected her trial as “rigged” and unfair, and New Delhi said in November that it was “examining” Dhaka’s request.Ties between Dhaka and New Delhi are strained on other fronts as well, with New Delhi repeatedly criticising incidents of violence against Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh, whereas the interim government maintains that the “intercommunal situation in Bangladesh is better than in many other parts in South Asia”.Meanwhile, anti-Indian sentiment on Bangladesh’s streets flared up in recent weeks over the murder of popular student leader Osman Hadi on Dhaka’s streets by unidentified gunmen.Bangladeshi bowler Mustafizur Rahman’s removal from the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Indian cricket board’s behest also prompted Bangladesh to refuse to play the men’s T20 World Cup in India citing security concerns, after which the country’s team was replaced by Scotland.The main contenders in the February elections – simultaneous to which a referendum on constitutional reform is to take place – are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on the one hand and an alliance comprising the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh in addition to the students-led National Citizens Party on the other.Led by its formerly exiled leader Tarique Rahman, the BNP is seen as the frontrunner in the election campaign.