President Barack Obama should have revoked the U.S. government’s decision to cancel Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visa after a court ruled in his favour in 2013 in a Gujarat riots case, said Edward Royce, chairman of the U.S. Congress’s most powerful body on foreign relations — the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Like in the U.S. system, when the judicial branch said it had looked at the evidence and did not find him [Mr. Modi] guilty, that decision should have been reversed,” Mr. Royce said in an interview to The Hindu soon after he attended Mr. Modi’s speech to Indian-Americans at the Madison Square Garden. The administration of former President George W. Bush had denied Mr. Modi a visa in 2005 in the wake of the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Mr. Royce said India could act as a “bridge” with countries such as China and Russia.