Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the swearing-in ceremony of new Maldivian President-elect Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in Male on Saturday. This will be Mr Modi’s maiden visit to the famous picturesque country as the Prime Minister.

In a series of tweets on the eve of his visit, Mr Modi said, he will convey to the new Maldivian government of Mr Solih, India’s desire to work closely for realisation of their developmental priorities, especially in areas of infrastructure, health care, connectivity and human resource development.

The Prime Minister said, the recent elections in the Maldives represent the collective aspirations of the people for democracy, rule of law and a prosperous future. He said, India strongly desires to see a stable, democratic, prosperous and peaceful Maldives.

The visit is in keeping with its neighbourhood first policy as India looks forward to closely working with Maldives in further deepening the partnership. In previous Maldives’ president Abdulla Yameen regime, ties between the two countries got severely strained after Yameen asked India to remove its two choppers from Maldivian territory, imposed restrictions on work visas for Indians.  President elect Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has stressed after his recent victory that he intends to establish strong bilateral ties with India once he assumes power. Experts believe, after Prime Minister’s visit, New Delhi hopes to rebuild its ties with the Maldives under the new regime.