Commenting on the issue surrounding the exclusion of cricketer Mostafizur Rahman from the IPL and its emergence as a political matter, Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed said that the incident involving Mostafizur Rahman did not originate in Bangladesh, describing the situation as unfortunate.
The controversy has not been beneficial for either of the two countries, Bangladesh and India, he claimed while responding to questions from journalists following a meeting of the Advisory Council Committee on Government Procurement at the Secretariat on Tuesday.
You were saying that the government wants to improve relations with India. But after Mustafizur was excluded from the IPL, the broadcast of IPL was stopped in Bangladesh. What kind of impact can there be in this context? When asked such a question by journalists, the Finance Adviser said, "No, we have not had any impact here. Not a word was said about sports in today's procurement committee meeting."
When asked if he sees possibility of any impact, he said, "No, I don't see it from my perspective, whatever is needed in the economic field and the decisions we are taking are rational and I don't apprehend any impact on the economy."
This is not just a matter of finance and trade, but also a matter of mutual relations. When asked such a question by journalists, Salehuddin said, "I cannot speak about mutual relations. You can ask the foreign adviser."
You said a few days back that India is a neighbour and you were working to improve relations with it. In this situation, two months before our elections, is such an incident political or not? When asked such a question, the Finance Adviser said, "You see the perspective, it was not started from Bangladesh. You will admit that it was not started by Bangladesh."
He said, "We call them ambassadors in sports. Mustafizur is a good player, a famous player. Those who took him, took after reviewing his record, he was not taken out of kindness. Our action is a sequel to what has happened, these are unfortunate. I say it is sad, it has not been good for either country."
