The party said the country’s foreign policy is in shambles since Pakistan's military chief Asim Munir is accorded a red carpet welcome in the US and India is slapped with a travel advisory
NEW DELHI — The Congress has trained its guns on the government for what it called a deterioration in the country’s global standing as reflected by the US administration’s recent advisory warning its citizens, especially women, against travelling to India.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here on Tuesday, party spokesperson and Chairperson of the Digital and Social Media Platforms, Ms Supriya Shrinate referred to the Level-2 advisory issued by the US government on India and said women have been advised not to travel alone to India. Further, she said, American government officials have been barred from travelling to India without permission.
The party also expressed surprise over the silence of the Narendra Modi government over such a serious development, which may have far-reaching consequences for the country. The party asked the government to raise the matter with the US administration.
“It is ironic that there was no such advisory for a country like Pakistan, which shields ‘terrorists’” she said. India, the fourth largest economy in the world and the land of Gandhi, has been subjected to this humiliation, she said.
Ms Shrinate noted that it was yet another diplomatic failure of the Modi government that the same country under the same leader whom Modi had gone out of his way to appease by organising shows like Howdy Modi, Namaste Trump and Abb ki Bar Trump Sarkar was repeatedly heaping and hurling insults on India. She also took a jibe at those people who performed special ‘hawans’ praying for Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections.
Ms Shrinate pointed out, Modi had spent the maximum time of his 11-year tenure so far, in visiting foreign countries and wooing foreign leaders and the result was that while the Pakistan military chief Asim Munir is accorded a red carpet welcome, India is slapped with a travel advisory.
She observed that this will not only have an adverse impact on India’s image and prestige on the global stage, but will also harm tourism and investments in the country. “It can impact everybody’s life in the country,” she said.
The Congress spokesperson also took strong exception to President Trump taking Prime Minister Modi’s and Munir’s names in the same breath, saying she cannot accept that the prime minister’s name is hyphenated with a military commander known for abetting and patronising terrorism.
Asserting that it was a serious failure of the foreign policy, she pointed out that it was only one in a series of insults by the Trump administration hurled at India. She said, besides the travel advisory, Trump was repeatedly claiming to have mediated the Indo-Pak ceasefire, threatening tariffs and deporting our people from the US handcuffed and under the most inhuman conditions. She said India’s foreign policy had never suffered such a setback.
Strongly condemning the US advisory, Ms Shrinate asked the government to take note of certain serious issues facing the country, particularly those related to the safety and security of women. She noted that 45 crimes were reported against women every hour in the country.
She quoted several incidents where the culprits, responsible for heinous crimes against women, were patronised, by the BJP leaders and governments.
“The truth is that you have not been able to provide justice to fifty percent population in the country and you have miserably failed to secure India’s interests in the world,” the Congress spokesperson remarked.
