[In
2005, the United States imposed a visa ban on Mr. Modi over questions about his
role in religious riots in his state in 2002, in which at least 1,000 people
were killed, most of them Muslims. He has denied any wrongdoing, and a Supreme
Court investigative team declined to bring charges against him in 2012, saying
there wasn’t enough evidence.]
By Nida Najar
 |
Gujarat Government/Handout/European Pressphoto Agency Nancy J. Powell, United States ambassador to India, with Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, at a meeting in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, on Thursday. |
NEW
DELHI — The United States ambassador to India, Nancy J. Powell, met with
Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, at his residence in Gujarat’s capital
on Thursday, the American Embassy in New Delhi said in a statement.
The meeting in Gandhinagar
with Mr. Modi, who is also the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for prime
minister, was part of Ms. Powell’s “outreach to senior leaders of India’s major
political parties in advance of the upcoming national elections” in May, the
statement said.
Bharat Lal, the resident
commissioner in Gujarat, who attended the meeting, said Mr. Modi and Ms. Powell
discussed a variety of issues, including security, defense, economic
cooperation and education. The American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and
private-sector investment in Gujarat were also discussed, he said, declining to
reveal more details.
It was the first time that a
United States government official of Ms. Powell’s rank had visited Mr. Modi.
In 2005, the United States
imposed a visa ban on Mr. Modi over questions about his role in religious riots
in his state in 2002, in which at least 1,000 people were killed, most of them
Muslims. He has denied any wrongdoing, and a Supreme Court investigative team
declined to bring charges against him in 2012, saying there wasn’t enough
evidence.
A State Department
spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said in
a briefing in Washington on Tuesday that the meeting did not reflect a change
of policy with regard to Mr. Modi’s visa.
The Bharatiya Janata Party
leader in Parliament, Arun Jaitley, said in a statement Thursday that
he regarded the meeting as “an internal corrective of the U.S. administration.”
Seshadri Chari, a national
executive member of the party, said that the fact that Ms. Powell chose to meet
Mr. Modi before rival political candidates was a sure sign of Mr. Modi’s
dominance in advance of the national elections this spring.
“In the next round of
meetings, she might meet other candidates, but she must have made an assessment
that Mr. Modi is first among equals,” he said. “If there are 10
candidates that qualify for prime minster, Mr. Modi comes first.”
He sought to play down the
visa ban, calling it the “nuts and bolts” of a more important question, which
is that of India’s relationship with the United States.
Mr. Chari said that the
meeting was a step forward in India-United States relations and that Mr. Modi’s
rising political prospects would continue to shift the course of his
relationship with the United States.
“When a person becomes prime
minister, I don’t think the United States would be foolish enough to think
otherwise than issuing a visa,” he said.
Nida Najar is a freelance
writer based in New Delhi. Follow her on Twitter @nidanajar.
ANDHRAPRADESH LAWMAKERS TURN VIOLENT AFTER TELANGANA BILL IS INTRODUCED
[Seconds after Mr. Shinde introduced the bill, the Lok Sabha was adjourned in an attempt to forestall any protests from the Andhra Pradesh contingent. But once the lawmakers from the southern state realized what Mr. Shinde was doing, they rushed to the well of the house and broke the microphone of the speaker, as well as a table and a window.]
NEW
DELHI — Violence disrupted the lower house of Parliament on Thursday, as
lawmakers from Andhra Pradesh, upset at a plan to divide their state, broke the
secretary general’s microphone and sprayed a chemical that sent some people to
the hospital.
The fracas in the Lok Sabha
began immediately after Sushil Kumar Shinde, India’s home minister, introduced
a central government bill to create a new state, Telangana, that would be
carved out of the existing southern state.
Residents who live in the
coastal Seemandhra region of Andhra Pradesh have staged demonstrations against
the Telangana plan, fearing the loss of river waters flowing from the Telangana
region and access to education and jobs in Hyderabad, the state capital.
The bill is expected to pass
Parliament, given that it has the support of both the governing Congress party
and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. But Andhra Pradesh lawmakers have
vowed to keep Parliament from passing the bill by preventing the legislature
from functioning.
Seconds after Mr. Shinde
introduced the bill, the Lok Sabha was adjourned in an attempt to forestall any
protests from the Andhra Pradesh contingent. But once the lawmakers from the
southern state realized what Mr. Shinde was doing, they rushed to the well of
the house and broke the microphone of the speaker, as well as a table and a
window.
A junior minister, R.P.N.
Singh, told reporters that one of the lawmakers sprayed some kind of gas or
pepper spray on other members. Lawmakers were seen holding handkerchiefs to their
faces as they left the Parliament building. Ambulances were called to
Parliament and took some legislators to a nearby hospital.
“This has shamed us,” Meira
Kumar, the speaker of the Lok Sabha, told reporters. “Today what has happened
is a blot.”
India’s parliamentary
minister, Kamal Nath, said he would ask Ms. Kumar to punish the lawmakers who
started the violence.
Some lawmakers accused
Venugopal Reddy, a Telugu Desam Party lawmaker from Andhra Pradesh, of
brandishing a knife, which he denied in an interview with NDTV.
He admitted that he broke the
secretary general’s microphone but said that he would not apologize.
“I have a lot of respect for
the democracy,” he said. But he accused other lawmakers of trying to physically
block him from registering his objections after the bill was introduced.
“At the time when they
forcibly want to introduce the bill, what is the democracy?” he asked.
