We welcome confirmation of Eric Garcetti as US Ambassador to India: MEA

New Delhi: India on Thursday welcomed confirmation of Eric Garcetti as the US Ambassador to New Delhi and said it looks forward to working with him to take ahead the multifaceted bilateral relations.

Considered a close aide of President Joe Biden, Garcetti received the confirmation to the post from the US Senate over two years after he was nominated to it.

"We welcome the confirmation of Eric Garcetti as the US Ambassador to India. We look forward to working with him to take forward the multifaceted bilateral relations," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing.

The Senate voted 52-42 to confirm the 52-year-old former Los Angeles mayor's nomination on Wednesday. His nomination was pending before the US Congress since July 2021 when he was nominated by President Biden.

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 13-8 in favour of his nomination.

Garcetti's nomination was not confirmed by the Senate earlier following concerns by some lawmakers that the then Los Angeles mayor had not adequately handled allegations of sexual assault and harassment against an aide.

Some Democrats had publicly expressed concern about whether Garcetti knew about the sexual harassment that his former aide Rick Jacobs allegedly committed.

Garcetti supporters argued that geopolitical concerns were too important to leave India without an ambassador.

The US Embassy in India has been without an ambassador since January 2021, the longest stretch in the history of US-India relations that the post has sat vacant.

Kenneth Juster, the last US envoy in New Delhi, stepped down in January 2021 after Biden became the US President.

Asked about Garcetti's reported comments on alleged human rights violations in India, Bagchi said, "I am not aware of any recent comments by the Ambassador-designate on this issue. I think there is something on social media which is pretty old."

To a separate question on a report about an entity called Democratic Party of India (DPI), allegedly registered with the Indian embassy in Washington using some lobbying firms, Bagchi said the government is not aware of the entity and described the story as "incorrect".

The MEA spokesperson said the government of India hires consultants and lobbying firms abroad from time-to-time as part of the outreach activities by the embassies.

"I think the name of this organisation in the US is called Cornerstone Government Affairs and It has been engaged by our embassy in Washington DC. We understand that lobbying forms in the US have to comply with certain US regulations, not ours," Bagchi said.

"We are certainly not aware of any entity called Democratic Party of India. It appears to have been a clerical error by that lobbying firm. That's what we understand -- while filing its US government regulations and it has subsequently corrected that," Bagchi said.

"I saw a completely speculative and incorrect story in one of the Indian media. We try to draw some inferences out of it despite knowing that the facts which are publicly available. So it's unfortunate they went ahead with that," he said.