PM Narendra Modi feels Donald Trump will be well inclined towards India

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking forward to working with US president-elect Donald Trump with whom he has good relations and feels that the incoming Republican administration will be well inclined towards India.

Modi shared an informal assessment of Trump's win and its implications at a dinner hosted by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan where he interacted with political leaders at length. The dinner lasted close to 75 minutes.

Asked how he intends to establish a rapport with Trump, the PM said he had good relations with the leader without elaborating further. He said there was no reason to apprehend any dramatic change in bilateral relations.

The discussion is understood to have turned to how Democrats and Republicans have dealt with India and the PM, who established a close working relationship with US President Barack Obama, is understood to have remarked that Republicans, on the whole, have been friendlier to India.

The discussion touched on the rockier periods of India-US relations in the early 1990s when US diplomat Robin Raphel had set off a heated controversy by referring to Jammu and Kashmir as "disputed" territory and backed military aid to Pakistan. Modi remarked that Raphel's ex-husband had died in an air crash in Pakistan which killed Zia ul Haq.

Raphel was a first assistant secretary of state for south Asia and it was only in 2000, when then president Bill Clinton visited India after the Kargil war, that the pendulum began swinging away from Pakistan and towards India.

It is understood that Modi remarked that some Democratic administrations had been more inward looking though recent governments have been more even in their approach to India.

One of Modi's significant successes has been his ability to work with Obama despite the apparent differences in their temperaments. US commentators have noted that the two leaders were able to take a long view of India-US ties despite Modi's critics claiming that intolerance has risen under BJP and Obama's activist inclinations.

In his interviews after becoming PM, Modi had said a part of the reason why he met foreign leaders extensively was to dispel media impressions about him and present himself as a pragmatic and responsible leader.