India’s Pak envoy all set for China posting

Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 27

India will be sending new envoys to China and Pakistan shortly as the Ministry of External Affairs gets ready for an internal reshuffle.

Gautam Bambawale, Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, would be moved to China while Ajay Bisarai, Ambassador to Poland, would replace Bambawale, sources confirmed to The Tribune. 

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Vijay Gokhale, Ambassador to China, would be moving back to the headquarters in New Delhi as the Secretary, Economic Relations. Gokhale is likely to move back by October after which both China and Pakistan postings would fall in place.

For China, the government’s choice was divided between Bambawale and Harshvardhan Shringla, the High Commissioner to Bangladesh. But Bambawale Bisaria is an IFS officer of the 1987 batch, who was private secretary to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and is considered close to the BJP.

He was in charge of the Eurasia division in MEA before moving to Poland as the Indian envoy. Bisaria is a Russian speaker and many expected that he might be posted as Ambassador to Russia after the present envoy Pankaj Saran retires. But sources confirm that Bisaria has been picked for the sensitive Pakistan posting.