BJP, Left oppn to N-deal laughable: US lawmaker

Congressman Frank Pallone, the founder and former co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans -- the largest country caucus in the US Congress--has said that no political party in India will be able to win the election on an anti-US platform because "Indians love America."

Pallone was speaking at the Congressional reception and dinner on Capitol Hill hosted by the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. The lawmaker admitted that he had burst out laughing after reading an article about how both the Left Front and the Bharatiya Janata Party were complaining that the Manmohan Singh government was too close to the United States.

"A couple of weeks ago, there was an article in The New York Times that was saying how the government of India--which if course, is primarily the Congress Party--was being criticised for being too close to the United States by both the Left wing as well as the BJP."

Pallone recalled, "I laughed when I read it because I said, 'Well, that won't last,' because anybody who thinks that they are going to come to power --and this is my opinion and you may disagree with me--any opposition party on the Left or Right by bashing the United States, this simply won't happen."

His comment was greeted with loud and sustained applause from the audience. The lawmaker went on to add, "The reality is that Indians love the United States."

Pallone is a Democrat from New Jersey, and his constituency includes Edison, which reportedly has the third largest population of Indian-Americans in the United States. 

He noted that "Every time you do a survey, you find that there is no major country where the people love the United States more than they do in India," he said.

"So, I read the article and I started laughing. I said, 'There is no way this is going to ever work because the relationship between our two countries has grown so much and a lot of it is really on a personal and cultural level," he added.

Pallone concluded by stating, "A lot of our relationship has been because of Indian- Americans like you bringing our two countries together in trade and all the economic and other ties that we have."