Besides the US President’s message to Mr Modi, efforts are also on within the US Congress to reach out to the Indian PM designate.Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Congress representative for Washington’s 5th congressional district, who was part of a delegation which visited Gujarat last year and met with Mr Modi, has written to him earlier this week to congratulate him and expressed the hope that some representatives from the US Congress will participate in his swearing-in ceremony, scheduled for Monday.
“When I visited you last year in Gujarat, I came away inspired by the economic reforms that you had initiated….I know that you will take these lessons with you to Delhi….I look forward to visiting with you again in person, either in the US or in India. I understand that your swearing-in will take place this coming Sunday [the letter was sent before the formal announcement had been made]. I am hopeful that representatives from the US Congress will participate,” Ms McMorris Rodgers wrote in her letter to Mr Modi.
A majority of Indians in the US, who supported Mr Modi and the BJP campaign in the Indian elections, now feel that the United Nations General Assembly session at the UN Headquarters later this year, between September 16 & 29, could be the ideal opportunity to break the ice and for the Indian PM designate’s America visit.
“The best bet for Mr Modi’s visit to the US is during the UN General Assembly meetings in September. And our organisation is working on having him invited for a meeting with President Obama either on the sidelines of the UN, but preferably to Washington DC to meet with him in the White House,” says Sanjay Puri, chairman of the US India Political Action Committee. “We believe that to move the relationship forward and to put the past behind, the US needs to walk a few extra steps and this invitation is one of the key steps,” he added.
Chicago-based businessman Shalli Kumar, who is the founder of the National Indian American Public Policy Institute and has been lobbying for support of Mr Modi in the US Congress in a big way, too, believes that in view of the US government’s unwillingness to make any statement on Mr Modi’s visa till he won the elections, the best time for Mr Modi to visit the US would be during the UN session. Mr Kumar, who also chairs the Indian American advisory council of the house Republican conference, was at the centre of a controversy last November when his efforts to get Mr Modi to address the US Congress at the Capitol Hill via a video link were thwarted. “If India’s PM designate does visit the UN in September, we will work very hard towards his addressing the US Congress as well during the visit,” Mr Kumar told ET.
Source: The Economic Times
