The Congress on Monday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not addressing United States President Donald Trump’s claims about threatening to stop trade as a way of pressuring India and Pakistan into accepting a ceasefire.

“The PM’s much-delayed address to the nation was completely upstaged by President Trump’s revelations a few minutes earlier,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X. “The PM was completely silent on them.”

Ramesh questioned whether India had agreed to US mediation or to holding talks with Pakistan at a “neutral” venue. He also asked if India was now prepared to concede to US demands for greater access to Indian markets in sectors such as automobiles and agriculture.

Earlier on Monday, Trump reiterated his claim that it was his administration that brokered a “full and immediate ceasefire” between India and Pakistan.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said he heard Modi’s statement as well as the US president’s, which he described as “deeply disturbing”.

“The US president says he used trade as a threat to ensure that Operation Sindoor is stopped,” Khera said in a statement. “We expected the PM to respond to this. Unfortunately, he did not.”

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor did not question Modi directly, but instead called Trump’s post “disappointing for India”.

He said the US president’s stance implies “a false equivalence between the victim and the perpetrator, and seemingly overlooks the US’ own past unwavering stance against Pakistan’s well-documented links to cross-border terrorism”.

He argued that offering Pakistan a negotiation platform was undeserved and that India would not engage in talks under threat. He also said the move “internationalises” the Kashmir dispute which New Delhi considers an internal matter.

On Saturday, India and Pakistan agreed to stop all firing after four days of military tensions.

India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had said at the time that the Pakistani director general of military operations had called his Indian counterpart on Saturday afternoon to propose an end to the skirmishes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated this position in his address to the nation on Monday.

Modi added that “nuclear blackmail” by Pakistan will not be tolerated and that Operation Sindoor was now India’s policy against cross-border terrorism.

Modi reiterated India’s position that “terror and talks” cannot take place simultaneously. “Terror and trade cannot happen simultaneously, and water and blood cannot flow simultaneously,” he added, referring to New Delhi suspending the Indus Waters Treaty on April 23.

The announcement by the Indian foreign secretary on Saturday came minutes after Trump claimed on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to the ceasefire. He had claimed that the ceasefire talks were mediated by Washington.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had claimed on social media that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”.

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