Nancy Powell meets Narendra Modi

US Ambassador to India Nancy Powell has met Gujarat Chief Minsiter and BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Thursday in Gandhinagar. The meeting has been seen as the ice breaker between US and Modi.

For the last nine years US had boycotted Modi over 2002 Gujarat riot and refused to give him a diplomatic visa, but now as Modi emerging as the top choice to become the next Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy, Washington is forced to reach out to Modi.

Although US trying to down play the visit but the sources are telling that Washington has been under pressure to end the boycott after UK, Germany and European Union started working with him.

Justifying Powell’s meeting with Modi, State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said US always engage to reach out senior political and business leaders across the globe, and meeting with Modi is also a part of that exercise.

 “These decisions don’t always rise up to every highest level. But certainly, all relevant individuals who needed to weigh in weighed in, and agreed that it was certainly an appropriate meeting to have,” Psaki told reporters.

“We are often engaged in concentrated outreach to senior political and business leaders. We began doing that months ago, if not years ago in different scales, of course to highlight and continue our US-India relationship. There have been no changes in our policy per se. This is an effort in that engagement,” Psaki added.

Denying the speculation over changing its stand on granting visa to Modi, Psaki told reporters that there is no change in the US visa policy.

“When individuals apply for a visa, their applications are reviewed in accordance with US law and policy. This is not a reflection of any change…This is simply a meeting happening on the ground in India. It’s not a reflection of anything else than outreach to a broad range of officials,” she said.

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