Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Lumbini in Nepal for Buddha Purnima on May 16, the Ministry of External Affairs announced on Thursday. This will be his fifth visit to Nepal since assuming office in 2014, but the first after Mr. Modi was re-elected in 2019. He will also hold a bilateral meeting with Nepal Prime Minister SherBahadur Deuba, who will meet him in Lumbini.
The two leaders will visit the Mayadevi temple, dedicated to Buddha’s mother believed to have given birth at the site. Then they will attend a foundation-laying ceremony for a centre for Buddhist culture and heritage, the MEA said. As The Hindu had reported last week, PM Modi will fly to Lumbini by helicopter from UP’s new Kushinagar airport. He will fly back to Delhi the same afternoon.
“Prime Minister Modi’s visit continues the tradition of regular high level exchanges between India and Nepal in furtherance of our Neighbourhood First policy. It underscores the shared civilizational heritage of the people of both countries,” the MEA statement announcing the visit said.
A similiar statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kathmandu said that the upcoming visit by Mr. Modi will “contribute to further strengthening the bilateral relations and the age-old socio-cultural bonds between the two countries”. Nepal’s Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka will call on PM Modi during his trip, it added.
The PM’s visit to Nepal is the first since a strain in ties between the two countries over border disputes at Kalapani and Susta erupted over a map the government published in 2019 to mark the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir. The visit to Lumbini is also expected to put to rest another dispute over the birthplace of the Buddha, after the Nepal government protested comments by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on the Buddha being one of the “greatest Indians”.
