Govt needs to get max advantage out of Quad grouping: Congress

The Congress on Friday asserted that India needs to get maximum advantage of the Quad grouping and said the government should share with the country the benefits that will be accrued from it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to address the first Quad summit on Friday, which will be attended virtually by US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

According to sources, the most significant among the deliverables envisaged in the historic summit of leaders of the Quad countries is a coronavirus vaccine initiative that will allow new manufacturing capacity to be added in India for export to the Indo-Pacific region.

Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said the Quad grouping should not become an agenda of one particular country being pushed. He said as far as Quad is concerned, it is not known which of the four members will benefit the most.

"The government should share with the country the benefits which India will accrue from Quad. It should not just become an agenda of one particular country being pushed. We need to get maximum advantage out of Quad," Khera told reporters.

The Congress leader sought to know whether the benefits will be fair to each and every member of Quad. "We do not have an answer (for it) yet," he said.

When India was facing tensions on the border with China, there was not much that India could achieve out of its diplomatic initiatives which could apply pressure on China, he noted.

"Therefore, questions on Quad are not yet settled. We don't have answers yet from the government, we don't have convincing answers," he said.