New Delhi, Mar 7 (PTI) The Congress on Saturday doubled down on its attack on the Modi government over US officials' remarks on India's Russian oil purchase and accused it of being “cowardly and compromised”.
The opposition party's jibe came after the US said it has given "permission" to India to buy Russian oil that is on ships already floating on waterways with a view to easing supplies around the world amid the West Asia conflict.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has given the Modi government its certificate for faithfully following President Trump’s orders.
“Does anything more need to be said about how cowardly and compromised the self-proclaimed 56-inch chest has become?” Ramesh said on X, posting a video clip of Bessent, in which the US treasury secretary says that the US has let India buy Russian oil “to ease the temporary gap of oil around the world”.
Dismissing opposition charges, a senior government functionary on Friday said India has never been dependent on permission from any nation to buy Russian oil and though the US sanctions' waiver allowing refiners to purchase it removes friction, it does not define the country's policy.
Russian oil continued to flow into India even after the US objected to it and imposed sanctions, the functionary said, citing a 2013 adjustment done by the then Congress government in oil imports under US sanctions.
After the US announced that it is issuing a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil, the BJP on Friday had termed the development a success of the strategic oil diplomacy under Prime Minister Modi, and said it's a “big egg on the face of anti-India Rahul Gandhi and the Congress”.
In an interview to Fox Business on Friday, Bessent said, “The world is very well supplied in oil. Yesterday, the Treasury (Department) agreed to let our allies in India start buying Russian oil that was already on the water.”
“The Indians had been very good actors. We had asked them to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil this fall. They did. They were going to substitute it with US oil. But to ease the temporary gap of oil around the world, we have given them permission to accept Russian oil. We may unsanction other Russian oil,” he said.
Bessent added that there are hundreds of millions of sanctioned barrels of crude on the water, and in essence, by unsanctioning them, the Treasury can create supply.
“And we are looking at that. We are going to keep a cadence of announcing measures to bring relief to the market during this conflict,” he said.
Several other Trump administration officials have also been saying that the US has now allowed India to buy Russian oil, months after President Donald Trump had imposed 25 per cent punitive tariffs on Delhi for its purchases of oil from Moscow.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a post on X Friday that the United States is “allowing our friends in India” to take the Russian oil already on ships around Southern Asia, refine it and move the stocks into the market quickly in order to ensure a flowing supply and ease pressure amid the ongoing US-Israel war against Iran.
"We have implemented short term measures to help keep oil prices down. We are allowing our friends in India to take oil that is already on ships, refine it, and move those barrels into the market quickly. A practical way to get supply flowing and ease pressure,” Wright said.
In an interview to ABC News Live, Wright said that long-term oil supplies are abundant and there are no worries regarding that, but in the short term, there is a need to get oil on the market.
“But as oil gets bid up a little bit because of those constraints coming out of the Strait of Hormuz, we're taking a short-term action to say all this floating Russian oil storage that's around Southern Asia, it's China just backed up, China does not treat their suppliers well, so there's a bunch of floating barrels just sitting there.
"We've reached out to our friends in India and said, ‘Buy that oil. Bring it into your refineries'. That pulls stored oil immediately into Indian refineries and releases the pressure on other refineries around the world to buy oil that they're no longer competing with the Indians for in that marketplace,” Wright said.
On Thursday, amid the escalating conflict with Iran, the US had said it was issuing a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil.
“President Trump's energy agenda has resulted in oil and gas production reaching the highest levels ever recorded. To enable oil to keep flowing into the global market, the Treasury Department is issuing a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil,” Bessent had said.
Trump had imposed the 25 per cent punitive tariffs on India for buying Russian oil, with the administration asserting that Delhi's purchases were helping fuel Russia's war machine against Ukraine.
Last month, the US and India announced that they had reached a framework for an Interim Agreement on trade, and Trump had issued an Executive Order removing the 25 per cent punitive tariffs on India, noting the commitment by New Delhi to stop directly or indirectly importing energy from Moscow and purchasing American energy products. PTI ASK SKY
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