‘Trump has clearly brushed aside MEA’s denial’: Congress targets Modi over US President’s Russian oil claim

The Congress on Tuesday stepped up its attack on the Centre over US President Donald Trump’s recent claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised him to stop the import of Russian oil.

 

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh noted that Trump had made the claims three times in the past five days, even as the Ministry of External Affairs denied any conversation between Modi and the US president in this regard.

 

"The matter of India's imports of oil from Russia has been raised by President Trump now thrice in the past five days. And no doubt he will keep increasing this tally as he prepares to meet President Putin in Budapest later in the week,” Ramesh said in a post on X.

 

"President Trump says he has spoken to his good friend Mr. Modi and India has promised to stop these imports. The MEA says that it is unaware of such conversations(!) but President Trump has clearly brushed aside the MEA's attempts at denial," he added. 

 

Trump claimed last week that Modi had assured him that India would stop buying oil from Russia, and termed it a "big step" in the efforts to put pressure on Moscow to end the Ukraine war.

 

“He's (PM Modi) a friend of mine. We have a great relationship...I was not happy that India was buying oil. And he assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia. That's a big stop. Now we've got to get China to do the same thing," the President had said.

 

On Monday, Trump doubled down on his claim and even warned that India would continue to pay “massive” tariffs on its imports to the US if it didn’t curb the oil purchase from Moscow.

 

Asked about India's assertion that it was not aware of any conversation between him and Modi, Trump replied: "If they want to say that, then they'll just continue to pay massive tariffs, and they don't want to do that."

India