Modi congratulates 'friend' Trump on 'historic' election victory, calls for boosting Indo-US ties

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday congratulated "friend" Donald Trump on his "historic" presidential polls victory, and said he looks forward to renewing their collaboration to further strengthen the India-US Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership.

Former US President Trump was cruising towards winning the White House race in one of the greatest political comebacks in American history.

"Heartiest congratulations my friend @realDonaldTrump on your historic election victory. As you build on the successes of your previous term, I look forward to renewing our collaboration to further strengthen the India-US Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership," Modi said in a post on X.

"Together, let’s work for the betterment of our people and to promote global peace, stability and prosperity," he said.

The prime minister also posted pictures of his previous meetings with Trump, who was the US president from 2016-2020.

Last month, Trump had praised Prime Minister Modi as "the nicest human being", saying the Indian leader is "a friend of mine".

Trump had made the comments in response to a question during the Flagrant podcast.

"Modi, India. He's a friend of mine. He's great... Before him, they were replacing them every year. It's very unstable. He came over. He's a friend of mine. But on the outside, he looks like he's your father. He's the nicest, but he's a total killer," he had said.

Trump had also recalled Modi's visit to Houston in 2019 to attend the 'Howdy Modi' event during his tenure, saying, "It was beautiful. It's like 80,000 people going crazy. We were walking around..."

The Republican candidate had said he shares a "very good relationship" with Modi.

The 'Howdy Modi' event was followed by Trump's 2020 visit to India, where he was welcomed with the 'Namaste Trump' rally, organised by PM Modi in Ahmedabad, with about 100,000 people attending the event at a cricket stadium. Modi and Trump had also met in 2017 in Washington DC.