‘Not easy to pull off…’: Tharoor lauds G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant for Delhi Declaration

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor congratulated the G20 team for the New Delhi Declaration adopted with full consensus during the G20 Summit, and said it was a commendable achievement.

Praising G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant, Tharoor said it was “not easy to pull off such a diplomatic deal”, emphasising that the “task seemed almost impossible to achieve”.

“I’m in touch with both Amitabh Kant, the G20 Sherpa, and with our foreign minister (S Jaishankar). I would congratulate them because what they have done is certainly very, very good for India. It is not easy to pull off a diplomatic negotiation like this,” Tharoor said while speaking during a virtual conversation about the G20 Summit that concluded on Sunday.

“They both seem to have put in a lot of hard effort, and I think one should give credit where credit is due,” he said.

The adoption of the New Delhi Leaders’ Summit Declaration with a “100 per cent consensus” on the opening day of the G20 Summit is being lauded as the biggest achievement for India during its G20 presidency.

Underlining that the Sherpa negotiations made it seem a difficult task to reach a consensus, Tharoor said, “As for the achievement of actually squaring the circle, which was an almost impossible task as far as Ukraine is concerned, it’s really very impressive. For nine months, it seemed very difficult to achieve. So, it really was an extremely effective achievement to pull this off.”

“I will not hesitate to compliment those who were led by Amitabh Kant and S Jaishankar, who worked hard to make this work. It is very impressive what they have achieved,” the Congress leader said.

Amitabh Kant, the main man behind the Delhi Declaration, congratulated his team after it was adopted. He said that hammering out a consensus on the “geopolitical paras” — a reference to the wording of the Ukraine crisis which had been a major sticking point — demonstrated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership in today’s world.

This effectively made G20 India “the most ambitious in the history of G20 presidencies”, Kant said. The government also lauded the New Delhi Leaders Declaration as a “huge India narrative, huge India footprint”.

The G20 grouping had been deeply divided over the war in Ukraine, with Western nations pushing for strong condemnation of Russia in the Leaders’ Declaration and others demanding a focus on broader economic issues. Despite that, the Delhi Declaration was passed with a 100 per cent consensus.