US CONGRESS INVITE FOR MODI

PM MAY ADDRESS JOINT SESSION ON MAY 8

US House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday announced he had formally invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address a joint meeting of Congress on June 8.

“The friendship between the United States and India is a pillar of stability in an important region of the world,” Ryan said at his weekly news briefing on Capitol Hill.

“This address presents a special opportunity to hear from the elected leader of the world’s most populous democracy on how our two nations can work together to promote our shared values and to increase prosperity. We look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Modi to the United States Capitol.” This will be the first joint meeting of Ryan’s speakership.

HT had first reported that there was a move to invite to the prime minister to address a joint session US congress at the request of top lawmakers from both parties.

Modi will become the fifth Indian PM to address congress after Rajiv Gandhi (1985), PV Narasimha Rao (1994), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (2000) and Manmohan Singh (2005).

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed only the House of Representatives, in 1949, and not a joint session or joint meeting of congress.

There was a move to invite Modi to address congress during his first visit to the US as prime minister in 2014, but it didn’t work out with then speaker John Boehner citing scheduling issues.

This time, the move to invite him started on April 9, with a letter to Ryan from Ed Royce and Eliot Engel, chairman and ranking member of the House foreign relations committee, and co-chairs of the House India caucus George Holding and Ami Bera, the only Indian-American member of US congress.