Washington, March 23: The latest WikiLeaks expose has revealed the US hypocrisy on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The 2006 cables reveal that the biggest worry for the US was about Modi making it to the national political stage.
The United States had refused to engage with Modi at the ambassadorial level. It had also revoked his B1/B2 visa in 2005, because of his role in the 2002 Gujarat communal violence.
A cable sent on November 2, 2006 underlines the importance of engaging Modi: “If Modi does eventually get a national leadership role in the BJP in the forseeable future, the United States Government will be obliged to decide how it wants to deal with a figure of national prominence, whose B1/B2 we revoked.”
The cable goes on to add that interactions with Modi “will also shield the US from accusations of opportunism by the BJP that would invariably arise if we ignored Modi now but sought a dialogue with him in the likely event that he makes it to the national stage.”
The cable adds that when an American diplomat raised the horrific Gujarat communal violence of 2002 with Modi in November 2006, the Gujarat CM raised the human rights violations by the US.
–Agencies–