Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], January 17 : Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya hailed the opening of the US Consulate in Bengaluru.
Speaking toabout the inauguration of the consulate, DK Shivakumar expressed pleasure and said, "India is seen through Bengaluru. This is a very great moment for all of us.".
Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, while speaking tonoted, "This is a remarkable day, a very important day for Bengaluru. This opening of the US Consulate in Bengaluru is an important, significant step. It's a very important step for India-US relationship and the relationship of Bengaluru with the United States. This was a very long pending demand."
He said that it was only natural that as India's technology capital, the city that contributes so much to India's GDP, the city that is the hub for space, innovation, EV, emerging technologies, which houses more than 650 American companies, and which also has a large student population that studies in the United States that the city has the American consulate.
"It was a very natural case for the city to have the US consulate. This long pending demand has been fulfilled by the efforts of our Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi and our External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. This is going to significantly ease the life of a lot of citizens, Bengalurians, people of Karnataka who otherwise had to travel to multiple cities for their visa needs. I'm sure that the visa operations will also begin, like Ambassador Garcetti has said very soon. We are confident that this is a very important and a significant milestone in further strengthening and deepening India-United States relationship", Tejasvi Surya further added.
Earlier during the inauguration ceremony, EAM S Jaishankar had hailed the step as an important moment in the India-US ties, Jaishankar also announced that India will soon be opening its consulate in Los Angeles.
"Bengaluru is such an important place, it was for me an imperative that there is a permanent resident presence of American diplomats this time...It has been something long in waiting...I told him (US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti) you get Bengaluru done and I'll get you Los Angeles done, which is his hometown. So we will be opening our consulate in Los Angeles also. A consulate serves many purposes. A big part of it is to facilitate travel," the EAM said.
US Envoy to India Eric Garcetti said that it was Jaishankar's idea to build a Consulate in Bengaluru, and the promise was kept.
"Today we fulfil a commitment made by our leaders during Prime Minister Modi's state visit to Washington last year. And it was actually in one of the preparatory meetings we had when the Secretary of State came here before G20 that we were at Hyderabad House in Delhi, and Minister Jaishankar took me aside and said, hey, we want you to open up more consulates here. And ever since, the Indian government has been pushing and pushing, and we've had a bureaucracy in America too, but President Biden put in the leader's statement with Prime Minister Modi that this would happen, and today a promise made is a promise kept. And this tangible expansion of our partnership is based on so much that we already have here," he said.
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