Why Modi govt appointed Dinesh Trivedi, a politician, envoy in Dhaka

A profile of Dinesh Trivedi - a TMC founding member-turned-BJP man - ahead of his taking charge

New Delhi is sending politician Dinesh Trivedi to Dhaka as its High Commissioner to Bangladesh, as the neighbours seek to reset ties in a rapidly-changing subcontinent. 

 

Trivedi, 75, was part of the group that founded Jan Morcha, the V P Singh-led faction that broke away from the Congress in 1987 and later merged into the Janata Dal. He was a Janata Dal Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat between 1990 and 1996.

 

Trivedi was also a founding member of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 1998. He served as the Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, and later as the Railway Minister, in the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by Manmohan Singh. He presented the 2012 Railway Budget that proposed a fare hike; because of this, he had to resign as the minister after protests from his own party. 

 

Trivedi represented West Bengal’s Barrackpur Lok Sabha constituency in 2009 and 2014, losing in 2019 to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Arjun Singh. The TMC then sent him to the Rajya Sabha. 

 

In March 2021, Trivedi joined the BJP. 

 

Trivedi, who hails from Gujarat, speaks fluent Bengali. He is being sent to Dhaka when India-Bangladesh relations are being reset by their respective governments. Trivedi’s experience as a businessperson could also prove to be crucial as Dhaka is keen to have more public and private sector investments from India.  

 

Trivedi is a rare political leader who is being sent to a foreign capital after 2014. The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has preferred sending retired Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers to key capitals — and also given them prominent responsibilities in New Delhi. 

 

A short history of diplomatic appointments

 

S Jaishankar, former foreign secretary, was inducted into the Union cabinet as the External Affairs Minister on May 30, 2019, and continues to hold that post, becoming India’s longest-serving foreign minister (barring Jawaharlal Nehru, who held the position in addition to prime ministership). 

 

Hardeep Singh Puri, a retired IFS officer, was inducted into the Union cabinet as a minister in 2017. He has handled key portfolios and currently oversees the petroleum and natural gas ministry.

 

IFS officer Vinay Mohan Kawatra was sent as India’s ambassador to the United States (US) post-retirement. India’s former ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu was appointed the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi in March 2026. Months after retiring from the IFS, Sandhu unsuccessfully contested the 2024 Lok Sabha polls from Amritsar as a BJP candidate.

 

Harsh Vardhan Shringla, another former foreign secretary, was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in July 2025 and is a BJP member in the Upper House. 

 

Former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director R K Raghavan served as India’s high commissioner to Cyprus in 2017, and former Army chief Dalbir Singh Suhag was the high commissioner to Seychelles from 2019 to 2022.

 

Political appointees as India’s high commissioners and ambassadors have included K R Narayanan, who served as India’s ambassador to the US (1980-84) after retiring from the IFS in 1978. He later became the vice president and president of India. 

 

Several of India’s ambassadors to the US have been political appointees, including Asaf Ali, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, M C Chagla, Nani Palkhivala, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Karan Singh, and Naresh Chandra; in London, the list has included V K Krishna Menon, Pandit, Chagla, L M Singhvi, N G Gore, and Kuldip Nayar. Political appointees among India’s ambassadors to the erstwhile USSR included Pandit, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, I K Gujral and Saiyid Nurul Hasan. Historian K M Panikkar served as India’s first ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, and later headed India’s missions in Cairo and Paris.