Jaipur, Apr 22 (PTI) Hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, US Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday described him as a “special person” and that the Indian leader’s approval ratings “make me jealous”.

In an address at an event here, Vance, while talking about India-US energy ties, also said that Modi is a “tough negotiator” who “drives a hard bargain” to fight for India’s industry.

The US Vice President, accompanied by Indian-origin Second Lady Usha Chilukuri, and their three children — sons Ewan and Vivek and daughter Mirabel — landed in Delhi on Monday morning on a four-day visit to India.

Modi hosted a dinner for the Vances at his official residence Monday night after holding talks with the American leader.

“I told Prime Minister Modi last night, he’s got approval ratings that would make me jealous,” Vance said in his remarks.

The US Vice President also talked about how his son Ewan loved the food at the dinner so much that he wanted to live in India.

“And yesterday, after we had dinner at the prime minister’s house, the food was so good and the prime minister was so kind to our three children that Ewan came up to me afterwards and said, dad, you know, I think maybe I could live in India,” Vance said.

“But I think after about 90 minutes in the Jaipur sun today at the Great Palace, he suggested that maybe we should move to England. So you take the good with the bad here,” he said.

Vance also called PM Modi a “special person” and criticised the previous US administration for what he described as trying to adopt an attitude of “preachiness” towards Modi.

“Now we’re not here to preach that you do things any one particular way. Too often in the past, Washington approached Prime Minister Modi with an attitude of preachiness, or even one of condescension,” he said.

“Prior administrations saw India as a source of low-cost labour. On the one hand, even as they criticized the prime minister’s government, arguably the most popular in the democratic world,” he said.

Vance said Modi is a tough negotiator and it is one of the reasons “why we respect him.” “And we don’t blame Prime Minister Modi for fighting for India’s industry. But we do blame American leaders of the past for failing to do the same for our workers. And we believe that we can fix that to the mutual benefit of both the United States and India,” he said.

Vance and his family’s visit to India came weeks after President Trump imposed and then paused a sweeping tariff regime against around 60 countries including India.

New Delhi and Washington are now holding negotiations to seal a bilateral trade agreement as agreed during Modi’s talks with Trump in Washington DC in February. The trade pact is expected to address a variety of issues including tariff and market access. PTI MPB ZMN