Washington, Dec 24 :
Congressman Eliot Engel, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was not aware of the inclusion of non-member Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and two others to the list of the lawmakers to meet the visiting External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar, here last week, sources said.
During his visit to Washington for the 2+2 US-India dialogue, Jaishankar had refused to meet Jayapal who had introduced a Congressional resolution on Kashmir urging India to lift all the restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir imposed after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5.
Engel, the Democratic lawmaker from New York, who along with Ranking Member Michael McCaul, were initially scheduled to meet Jaishankar on December 18, is believed to have come to know about the addition to the team only after the Indian Embassy here objected to the changes what was initially agreed upon, sources told PTI.
But by then, the morning of December 18, when Engel came to know about it, it was too late for him and it would have been quite inappropriate for him to take any step that could have been seen as going against his own Congressional colleagues, they said. The Indian Embassy, miffed at the manner in which additional names of lawmakers who were not even members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee were added without keeping into confidence, cancelled the meeting, the sources said.
Multiple sources privacy to the deliberations here last week indicate that in addition to Jayapal, the list included two other lawmakers who are part of the same group and in the recent past have been hostile in their attitude with India on issues of Kashmir, human rights and religious freedom. The PTI was not able to independently verify the name of the two other lawmakers. Before his arrival in the US to attend the 2+2 dialogue on December 18, Jaishankar had requested a meeting with the leadership of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which are essentially the heads of the lawmakers from two parties ? Democratic and Republican — in those two committees.
In the Senate, the Republican Senator is the Chairman and the Democratic lawmaker is the Ranking Member.
It is just the opposite in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Jaishankar’s meeting with the Senate committee went as per the schedule.
Notably, the House meeting was scheduled at the same time when President Donald Trump agreed to meet Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in his Oval Office.
It was initially planned to be just a courtesy call and a photo opp.
But Trump, reportedly in a cheerful mood, that too on an impeachment day, went beyond his schedule and spent some 40 minutes with the visiting Indian leaders.
In such a scenario, the meeting with the House Foreign Affairs Committee leadership would not have had happened anyway, the sources said.
