New Delhi:
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said Thursday he failed to understand the hullabaloo about his visit to Mumbai to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which Rahul Gandhi termed as "summoning".
The Minister said he "failed to get it".
"They don't like Mumbai. They have something against Mumbai. It's our financial capital. It's our Bollywood capital. It has got so much going for it. Maybe Mumbai doesn't like them. I have no idea. Why they have this reservation," Jaishankar, speaking at NDTV World Summit, said.
The 71-year-old Minister, a former diplomat, said he can list out very many examples where leaders have travelled out of Delhi to meet a foreign leader.
He cited two examples from the Congress: Indira Gandhi meeting Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Shimla in 1972 to sign the Shimla Agreement and Salman Khurshid, a minister in the Manmohan Singh government, hosting a lunch for the then Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in Jaipur in 2013.
"If going out of Delhi to meet a foreign leader or a foreign counterpart is summoning, I can give you a lot of examples. Mrs Gandhi went to Shimla to meet Bhutto. Was she summoned? Salman Khurshid went to Jaipur to meet a Pakistan PM. Was he summoned?" he asked.
"We are adults, let's have an adult conversation. Let's leave, you know," the Minister, amid a round of claps, said, taking a swipe at the Congress leader.
The US Mission in India, in a statement on Thursday, said that Secretary Rubio visited Mumbai and Jamnagar from October 20-22 to "advance the US-India strategic partnership, strengthen commercial and investment ties, and reaffirm the United States' commitment to a prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific".
Secretary Rubio participated in a Freedom 250 reception as the guest of honour commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence and celebrating the enduring bonds between the American and Indian people, the Mission added in its statement.
In Mumbai, Rubio also held talks with Minister S Jaishankar on the India-US strategic partnership and progress in negotiations on the proposed trade deal.
The Minister, speaking about the trade deal today, said it is in its "last mile". He then added a cautionary note: "It's never done till it's done".
"What you've heard not just from Secretary Rubio, but from Minister Piyush Goyal, from others, from me, is that we are moving towards it. But, as I said, often the last mile or the penultimate miles do pose their challenges. I think the [negotiating] teams are working through them now," Jaishankar said.
"If you're asking me to tell you what exactly those challenges are, I'm sorry I won't. That's for the negotiators to sort out," he further said.
India and the US have been in talks since early 2025 on the proposed trade pact to address tariff friction, eliminate non-tariff barriers, and boost bilateral market access.
India is seeking better tariffs than its competitors for its goods in the US market.
The first phase of a trade deal between India and the United States has been finalised and is undergoing legal drafting, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said earlier this month.
READ | First Tranche Of India-US Trade Deal Finalised, Draft To Be Out Soon
"The US bilateral trade agreement first tranche has been finalised. It's going through final contours, the legal drafting, and we hope to be able to finalise that soon and operationalise that once we get comparable advantage or competitive advantage over our peer countries," Goyal, addressing the SRCC Centenary Conclave in Delhi, said.