West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is set to arrive in Dhaka on Thursday night on a three-day visit, at the invitation of Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali.

The West Bengal CM is scheduled to meet Bangladesh President Mohammad Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to discuss a host of issues during the trip.

The talks would particularly focus on the contentious Teesta water sharing and land boundary agreements, which Banerjee had opposed in the past.

‘There should be stronger cultural ties between the two Bengals. Hope this trip will make our bond stronger,’ Banerjee told media persons on Wednesday at the state secretariat ‘Nabanna’ without mentioning the issues she would be discussing with them.

The chief minister will attend the main function at Dhaka’s Central Shaheed Minar on 21 February, also the occasion of International Mother Language Day, which commemorates the martyrdom of Bangladesh youths during the Language Movement in 1952.

Banerjee said her government would build a replica of the Bhasha Shahid Smarak in Kolkata near the Birla Planetarium.

The chief minister received an invitation from Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali and would also attend a high tea hosted by him.

Diplomatic sources said the chief minister would address a business conclave organised by the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IBCCI) in association with the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Kolkata.

Banerjee would be visiting the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in Dhanmondi and also be present at a reception hosted in her honour by the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pankaj Saran.

The chief minister, on her first visit to Bangladesh, is leading a delegation that includes senior ministers, high-level bureaucrats, cultural personalities and business leaders.

State Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim, Tourism Minister and playwright Bratya Basu, actors-turned MPs Deb and Moonmoon Sen, and business magnates Harsh Neotia and JP Choudhury would be part of the entourage.