Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said Bangladesh’s relations with India are of friendship, not of slavery.

“We don’t forget our national interest in keeping relations with India. India was a genuine friend in our liberation war,” he said while handing over the party’s membership forms and copies of the party constitution to the AL leaders of Kurigram and Cumilla districts at the Awami League president’s Dhanmondi political office here.

Quader said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join the celebration of Mujib Year as a representative of India.

Those who are opposing Modi’s visit to Dhaka have been behaving with India like slaves, he said.

The AL general secretary said when BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia was the prime minister, she visited India but forgot to discuss the water issue during her visit.

But, he said, the BNP leaders are now behaving like slaves to satisfy the Indian leaders.

He added that those who oppose Modi’s visit are opposing the Mujib Year.

Directing the AL grassroots leaders not to make party members the terrorists, communalists and anti-liberation elements, he said, “Be careful too so that extortionists, land grabbers, drug traders and addicts cannot be members of the AL”.

AL presidium members Matia Chowdhury and Jahangir Kabir Nanak, its organising secretary Mirza Azam, relief and social welfare secretary Sujit Nandi Roy, office secretary barrister Biplab Barua, science and technology affairs secretary Engr Abdus Sabur and deputy office secretary Sayem Khan were, among others, present.