Barack Obama's India Trip was Highly Successful: US Congressman Ami Bera

"We never realised the potential of the partnership but now there is a framework to really move forward and accelerate this," Congressman Ami Bera, Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans told PTI in an interview.

 

A Democratic Congressman from Silicon Valley, Mr Bera, 49, was one of the only four US lawmakers invited by Obama to accompany him to India on Air Force One (the Presidential plane).

 

When asked about the resentment expressed by Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, that the Republican members were not made part of this delegation, Mr Bera said he was not part of the invitation either.

 

"I was not part of the invitation. I was honoured to be part of the delegation as an Indian-American. I think Royce has been a long time champion of the US-India relationship, as well as champion within the diaspora," he said.

 

"I view US-India relationship and the diaspora more broadly, it should be bi-partisan. It is not a Democratic or Republican issue when you are talking about the US-India relationship," Mr Bera said.

 

Sharing his experience from the trip, Mr Bera said: "I think there is a clear chemistry between the President and the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi)."

 

"Everyone on the trip agreed that this was a successful trip and the feeling was that there is a framework in place now, there is a level of conversation that is going on between the Prime Minister's government and the President's administration," he said when asked about the mood in Air Force One while returning back to the US from India.

 

Noting that at the Congressional level there is great interest in the Indo-US relationship, Mr Bera said it was good to see progress on civil nuclear deal.

 

"The Prime Minister has really laid out an ambitious agenda in achieving energy independence and one of them is nuclear energy," he said.

 

Even as there is still a lot of work to do "we now have a framework where US companies can work with India," he said.