As PM Modi embarks on Saudi visit, Congress recalls Nehru’s 1956 trip

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a visit to Saudi Arabia, the Congress on Tuesday, 22 April, recalled the first visit of the Saudi King to India in November-December 1955 after which then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru went to the Middle Eastern country the following year.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh shared two video clippings from the visit of the Saudi King in 1955 and Nehru's visit to Saudi Arabia in 1956.

"As the Prime Minister begins his visit to Saudi Arabia it is worthwhile recalling the first visit of the Saudi King to India that took place in Nov-Dec 1955," Ramesh said.

King Saud Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was in India for 17 days between 26 November and 13 December 1955, visiting New Delhi, Mumbai, Khadakwasla, Bengaluru, Mysuru, Hyderabad, Agra, Aligarh, and Varanasi, Ramesh said in his post on X.

"The Saudi King's extraordinary visit of 1955 overlapped with that of the two Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin who spent a total of 19 days in India in two spells - 18 November 1955 to 30 November 1955, and again from 7 December 1955 to 14 December 1955," he said.

Thereafter, then Prime Minister Nehru visited Saudi Arabia from 24 to 28 September 1956, Ramesh recalled.

Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday said India deeply values its long and historic ties with Saudi Arabia, asserting that their relations have acquired a strategic depth and momentum in recent years.

In his departure statement ahead of his two-day visit to the kingdom on the invitation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he said both countries have developed a mutually beneficial and substantive partnership, including in the domains of defence, trade, investment, energy and people-to-people ties.