WASHINGTON: Sen. Larry Pressler last week promised Finance Minister Manmohan Singh that he would adopt all the Congressional tools at his disposal to fight any attempt to either repeal or modify the Pressler Amendment, but acknowledged that it would be an uphill battle.
Pressler who hosted the Finance Minister and Finance Secretary Montek Singh Ahluwalia for breakfast on Capitol Hill, said, “I’ll fight any effort to repeal it, use filibustering or cloture, which is the same as filibustering to require 60 votes, if it ever came up. But I am worried that each year there is more and more pressure.” He recalled that “we have worked with the Indian Ambassador (Siddhartha Shanker Ray) to call on virtually every senator, but it’s getting more and more difficult every year.”
The Senator said the pressure to repeal the amendment was compounded by the attacks on it by senior and influential legislators like Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, ranking minority member of the House International Relations Committee, and Sen. Hank Brown, Colorado Republican, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 12, 1995
