The Congress posed three questions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, July 8, as he embarked on his visit to Russia, the first since the Ukraine war broke out. The opposition party asked whether the relationship between India and Russia has cooled off under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership.
“I have raised three questions to the non-biological PM. Dr Manmohan Singh and Putin and the Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev had met 16 times in 10 years. Putin and Modi have met 11 times. So does this mean some cooling of relations between Russia and India? That’s the first question,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
The Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) claimed that India’s imports from Russia are almost $46 billion while the exports stand at about $3.5 billion. “This is a completely unsustainable trade deficit. So what is the non-biological PM doing?” Ramesh said wondering if the PM would raise the issue of this unsustainable trade deficit during his Russia visit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Russia this afternoon for a two-day official visit. He will be in Moscow at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin for the 22nd India-Russia Annual Summit.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state channel VGTRK that PM Modi’s schedule in Moscow is expected to be extensive. He added that the two leaders would be able to have informal talks.
“And third and most important issue is that 50 Indian youths are fighting in the Russian army. It means there are no jobs here. They are desperate, they are looking for jobs and they have to go and become agniveers for Russia. And two of them have died. So who is recruiting them? Which is this contractor? What are its political links? We can’t give jobs to our youth… So will the non-biological PM raise this issue with Putin?” Ramesh said in the X post.
