UK PM Boris Johnson cancels trip to India due to coronavirus worries

Pressure had been mounting on Johnson to call off the visit amid growing concerns of a new variant of Covid-19 detected in the country

Boris Johnson. Credit: Reuters File Photo

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual summit with his counterpart in the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, who dropped his plan to visit New Delhi, in view of the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India.

Johnson said in London that he and Modi had decided to hold the summit virtually as he would not be able to visit New Delhi. “I do think it's only sensible to postpone, given what's happened in India, the shape of the pandemic there,” said the British Prime Minister.

This is the second time the British Prime Minister had to postpone his proposed visit to India due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He was earlier expected to visit New Delhi on January 25 and 26 to attend the Republic Day ceremony as the Chief Guest. But he had to cancel the visit in the wake of the alarming rise in the Covid-19 infection in the UK.

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Modi and Johnson were expected to announce a new India-UK Enhanced Trade Partnership – a prelude to a Free Trade Agreement – during the British Prime Minister’s visit to New Delhi. The UK was relying heavily on the visit and the proposed “early harvest” trade deal with India to boost post-Brexit and post-Covid-19 economic recovery.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi on Monday said that it had been decided by “mutual agreement” that the Prime Minister of the UK would not visit India next week in view of the prevailing Covid-19 situation. “The two sides will be holding a virtual meeting in the coming days to launch plans for a transformed India-UK relationship” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the MEA, said.

Both Modi and Johnson attached the highest importance to taking the India-UK partnership to its fullest potential and proposed to remain in close touch and look forward to an in-person meeting later in the year, added the MEA spokesperson.

“Countries around the world including our own have been through this – I think everybody's got a massive amount of sympathy with India, what they're going through,” Johnson was quoted by the BBC. He added that the relationship between the UK and India was of "huge importance".