New Delhi: The Congress accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of violating Indian foreign policy’s ‘time honoured principle’ of not interfering in the domestic elections of another country by ‘actively campaigning’ for US President Donald Trump at the ‘Howdy, Modi!’ event in Houston.
The opposition party said Monday that by taking a ‘partisan’ position, Prime Minister Modi has done a ‘disservice’ to long-term strategic Indo-US relations. Congress also took a swipe at Modi and said it would have been better if he would have ‘shed his aversion’ to Jawaharlal Nehru and joined in endorsing what the US Senators were saying about the country’s first Prime Minister.
Congress senior spokesperson Anand Sharma said it should not be seen that India is taking sides and the Prime Minister using the Houston platform to exhort and raise the slogan of ‘Ab ki baar Trump sarkar’ was better avoided.
“We have a strategic partnership between India and the United States of America which is bipartisan, which we fully endorse. But, there is a time honoured convention of India’s foreign policy that when we engage with the foreign governments or the president or prime minister when on foreign soil, we do not take part in the domestic electoral politics. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have honoured that,” Anand Sharma told reporters.
“It should not be seen that India is taking positions or sides and Prime Minister using that platform to exhort and raise that slogan on ‘Ab ki baar Trump sarkar’ was better avoided,” the Congress leader said.
Sharma said India has engaged with both Republican and Democratic administration and it was a Republican government under President George W Bush ‘when we successfully negotiated the Indo-US Nuclear deal during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s tenure’.
On President Trump attending the ‘Howdy, Modi’ event in Houston, he said, the Congress has no objections to it. “But, we hope the Prime Minister would get President Trump to agree to restore all the cuts on H1B Visas, reduce fees and again restore the GSP so that Indian exports can get access to the US markets,” Sharma pointed out.
Sharma’s party colleague P Chidambaram, who is in Tihar jail on charges of alleged corruption, also took a dig at Modi over his ‘Everything is fine in India’ remark in Houston.
“Bharat mai sab achha hai. Except for unemployment, loss of existing jobs, lower wages, mob violence, lockdown in Kashmir and throwing Opposition leaders in prison,” Chidambaram tweeted through his family.
PTI