'Submitted final draft...,' India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant on getting consensus for 'New Delhi Declaration'

G20 Summit 2023: Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that G20 members had unanimously adopted the 'New Delhi Declaration', which earlier looked difficult considering sharp differences between the West and China-Russia on the Ukraine issue, India's Sherpa Amitabh Kant on Saturday revealed how the consensus was achieved. He said the negotiation was tough as all sherpas of member countries were very tough negotiators.

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"It's been very very tough, but we managed to get everybody around. It really demonstrates India's great leadership of bringing all emerging markets together, bringing the developed world together, bringing China, Russia - everyone together and arrived at a consensus on 83 different paras including 8 paras on geo-political crises," he said in an exclusive interview with India Today's News Director Rahul Kanwal.

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"We have been doing non-stop negotiations for the last eight days since Sherpa meetings started. It had been round the clock," he said, adding that the sherpas are "very very tough and ruthless negotiators". He said while they were able to get a lot done on the developmental side, the Russia-Ukraine issue was the real challenge.

The Indian sherpa revealed that PM Modi's instruction was to achieve full consensus, "we do not want any footnote, we do not want any chair summary - it has to be a 100 per cent consensus." Kant said that what New Delhi achieved was "truly unique" in terms of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. He said it was the voice of emerging markets speaking out.

Kant said it became possible because he worked with sherpas of Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia. We worked as a team together, and later we brought in Saudis, Mexico, and Turkey." He said once one has the voice of emerging markets, then everyone else understood that New Delhi wanted consensus. He said India had to work through about 7-8 different drafts.

"After having done about 15 different drafts, four sherpas realised that this was the best balance, this was the best perspective and it had taken care of everyone's red lines - so I took it to Sherpas' meeting late at night and said this is the final version and we will make no changes. If any country has any issues, please ask your leader to talk to my Prime Minister. My Prime Minister has green signal, and feels it is a very good draft."

Kant said this was finished at about 4 am and when he checked his phone at 7 this morning, there was no objection to the draft from any countries. "Everyone had fallen in line," the Indian sherpa said, adding that this shows the clout of Prime Minister Modi.