Modi govt merely benefited from efforts under UPA: Congress on Rana extradition

In an interview to News18 Wednesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that Rana’s extradition to India was a “massive diplomatic achievement of the Modi government” and targeted the Congress saying “he couldn’t be brought to India by those under whose government the attacks took place”.

Chidambaram said he was glad Rana could be brought back but claimed the truth was far from the Modi government’s spin. “This extradition is the culmination of a decade-and-a-half of painstaking diplomatic, legal and intelligence efforts which were initiated, led, and sustained by the UPA government in close coordination with the US,” Chidambaram said in his statement.

Underlining that the Modi government did not initiate this process, nor did it secure any new breakthrough, he said, “It merely benefited from the mature, consistent, and strategic diplomacy begun under the UPA.”

According to Chidambaram, the coursework began on November 11, 2009, when the NIA registered a case in New Delhi against David Coleman Headley (US citizen), Tahawwur Rana (Canadian citizen), and others involved in the 26/11 conspiracy.

That very month, Chidambaram claimed, Canada’s Foreign Minister confirmed collaboration with Indian agencies, “thanks to UPA’s effective foreign policy”.

He said after his arrest in Chicago when Rana was acquitted of some of the charges, the UPA government had publicly expressed its disappointment and kept diplomatic pressure alive.

“Despite legal setbacks, the UPA government persisted through institutional diplomacy and legal mechanisms. A three-member NIA team interrogated Headley in the US before the end of 2011, based on mutual legal cooperation frameworks under the MLAT. The US government transferred crucial evidence to India, which became part of the NIA’s chargesheet filed in December 2011 against nine accused, including Rana,” Chidambaram said.

He said the Special NIA Court in Delhi issued non-bailable warrants, and Interpol Red Notices were secured for the absconding accused. “This was not a media stunt but quiet, determined legal diplomacy,” he said.

According to Chidamabaram, in 2012, then External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and then Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai took up the matter of extradition of Headley and Rana with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman.

By January 2013, Headley was sentenced to 35 years, and Rana’s sentencing in the US also took place, he said.

“India’s demand for Headley’s extradition was reiterated firmly, even as the UPA government expressed its disappointment at the sentence. Then Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao also pursued the matter consistently. This was a textbook example of how sensitive issues of international justice should be handled through diplomacy,” Chidamabaram said.

Even after the government changed in 2014, he said that it was the institutional efforts already in motion that kept the case alive.

“In February 2025, Prime Minister Modi and President Trump stood at a press conference and tried to take credit for what was essentially the result of years of UPA-era groundwork,” he said.