The Congress on Wednesday dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s five-day trip to the U.S. as disappointing and over-hyped with little to show in terms of gains for the country. The party was critical of the Prime Minister, calling him “an event manager rather than a statesman” who it said had belittled his post by mocking previous governments on foreign soil.
Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma criticised Mr. Modi for making special concessions to the U.S. before embarking upon the trip, by “diluting the national list of essential medicines at the cost of India’s poor patients.”
Mr. Sharma said India and the U.S. did not have the mandate to revisit the country’s Intellectual Property (IP) laws framework because it is a multi-lateral agreement and not a bilateral one. The two countries have decided to set up a high level IP working group to crease out differences that hamper U.S. investments in India. The Congress said Mr. Modi had managed to extract little in return.
“When you look at the outcome it is definitely disappointing, there are no major takeaways of this much-hyped visit. An atmosphere was created where individuals who are mature also got excited — to an extent that everybody started believing that there will be major agreements,” Mr. Sharma said.
The Congress said the expectation of investments from the U.S. was far greater than those from Japan or China. “We will wait and see when all these investment comes in, it’s not going to happen in months, it will take years,” Mr. Sharma said.
The opposition party also criticised the Prime Minister for being in the ‘election campaign mode’ on foreign soil. “Diplomacy needs gravitas, comprehension and seriousness. You engage with your strategic partners in that spirit,” Mr. Sharma said.
He alleged that of the 18000-strong crowd at the Madison Square Garden event, “a sizeable proportion of cheerleaders went from India…it was an expensive event.”
“Who will not come there if you have the best of Bollywood dancers, best of artists of India roaming the streets for hours?” the Congress leader asked.
