NewsGate Press Network

This came-in within hours of US announcement allowing India to import Russian oil for next 30 days under their watch, the principal opposition party, the Congress slammed the govt raising questions on national sovereignty.

Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha said India’s current foreign policy is the result of the “exploitation of a compromised individual”.

On Friday morning (Indian time) the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said  “President (Donald) 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.”

In a statement tweeted on social media post ‘X’, Rahul Gandhi said: “India’s foreign policy emerges from the collective will of our people. It should be rooted in our history, our geography, and our spiritual ethos based on Satya and Ahimsa.”

“What we are witnessing today is not policy. It is the result of the exploitation of a compromised individual,” he added.

Gandhi also shared his 11th February speech in the Lok Sabha during a discussion on the budget, where he spoke about India’s energy security being compromised. “The US will tell us who we can or cannot buy oil from, if it is Russia or Iran, the US will decide. But our prime minister will not decide,” Gandhi had said.

Later in the day while addressing a presser in the National Capital, Congress’s media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said Gandhi’s words have yet again proved to be prophetic that the US would decide from whom “we should be purchasing oil”.

Referring to the announcement of the one-month waiver granted by the US, allowing India to import Russian oil, Khera asked, “Will the US grant us a licence for importing oil?”

He pointed out that the Indo-US trade deal is yet to be signed and still, restrictions are being imposed on New Delhi.

Khera said after the US Supreme Court had set aside the Trump tariffs, Gandhi had asked Modi to keep the deal on hold, but he did not.

“Prime Minister Modi does not have the courage to back out of the trade deal,” the Congress leader said.

He said people still remember the days when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister, and “now, with a compromised prime minister”, the country’s stature has come down.

“The prime minister has completely capitulated before the Americans today. What are you scared of?… Maybe the Epstein files make you do whatever America wants you to do,” Khera said.

It may be recalled that Donald Trump had imposed 25-per cent punitive tariffs on India for buying Russian oil, with the US administration asserting that Delhi’s purchases were helping fuel Russia’s war against Ukraine.