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Bhutan’s incoming PM faces daunting tasks on ties with India

Tshering Tobgay, Bhutan’s incoming prime minister, is facing several daunting tasks like reassuring India that it will not deviate from its diplomatic policy of not having formal ties the ‘Big Five’ of the UN, including China and restoring economy, when he assumes charge.

Tobgay, chief of the victorious People’s Democratic Party, will assume charge as the Himalayan nation’s second democratically elected prime minister later this month. 

During the campaigning, the 47-year-old leader had criticised his predecessor and outgoing ruling party Druk Phuensum Tshogpa chiefJigmi Y Thinley for his apparent warmness towards China by meeting the then Premier Wen Jiabao in Brazil last year, a move which apparently irked New Delhi. 

Tobgay is yet to speak up his mind after his party secured a landslide victory in Saturday’s general elections by winning 32 seats in the 47-member National Assembly. 

He has indicted that he would speak on issues facing the country only after formally taking over the country’s executive responsibility.

‘I am a very technical and it is high time that we follow due process. I cannot take a position now,’ he told reporters. 

In its manifesto, the PDP pledges that in its first 100 days of government, its first priority will be to rebuild and strengthen India-Bhutan relations and in the long term interest of strengthening democracy. 

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