India threatened and insulted: Yechury slams Modi govt over Trump's tweet

New Delhi, June 28: Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday attacked Narendra Modi government over US President Donald Trump demand that India should withdraw tariffs for US goods.

Taking to Twitter, Sitaram Yechury wrote: "Never has India been publicly threatened and insulted like this, and PM told off publicly. It is not about any person but the country's self-respect and the dignity of PM's post can't be held hostage to agenda of a ruling party and its leaders who can't stand up for India."

Sitaram Yechury's response was to a tweet by US President Donald Trump who described as "unacceptable" the tariffs hiked by India on American products.

Trump tweeted that he was looking forward to speak Modi "about the fact that India, for years having put very high tariffs against the United States, just recently increased the tariffs even further. This is unacceptable and the tariffs must be withdrawn!"

The US President piled on pressure on India after talks between his Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and his Indian counterpart did not yield any compromise solutions.

Effective June 5, the United States has unilaterally scrapped duty-free export facility to over 2,000 product categories from India, which retaliated earlier this month by raising duties on 28 US exports including almonds and Washington apples.