new Delhi: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge launched a sharp attack against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central Government on Monday, questioning its highly publicized claims of elevating India’s global standing. Citing official metrics on international passport rankings, domestic visa infrastructure, and incoming tourism data, Kharge asserted that the reality on the ground completely contradicts the administration’s narrative. The opposition leader specifically targeted a 2018 declaration by Prime Minister Modi, who had stated that Indian citizens living and travelling abroad were experiencing unprecedented respect and strength via their national passport, demanding to know where that purported global influence is visible today.
To back his critique, the Congress chief highlighted data from prominent international tracking indices, pointing out that India’s geopolitical mobility has visibly eroded. Kharge noted that under one global metric evaluated by the World Economic Forum, India’s passport position fell from 74th place in 2013 down to 80th as of June 2026. He further highlighted the Global Passport Index compiled by Global Citizen Solutions, which placed India at a lower rank of 125th overall for 2026, positioning the country behind regional peers such as the Philippines and Morocco in terms of visa-free access flexibility.
The opposition leader also condemned the Ministry of External Affairs’ recent decision to sharply increase passport processing fees, which took effect on July 1, 2026. Under the revised tariff structure, the baseline fee for a standard 36-page ordinary passport has risen from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500, while fast-track Tatkal application charges have doubled to Rs 5,000. Kharge argued that instead of updating systemic backlogs and refining public delivery systems, the government has simply penalized ordinary citizens by charging higher rates for substandard, delayed administrative services.
Turning his focus to the hospitality and aviation sectors, Kharge stated that foreign tourist arrivals have failed to recover to pre-pandemic benchmarks. According to immigration records, annual foreign arrivals dropped from 10.93 million in 2019 to 9.95 million in 2024. He accused the administration of intentionally masking these structural shortfalls by blending Non-Resident Indian arrivals into the core foreign tourist data sets. Kharge concluded by criticizing India’s digital visa portal as an outdated, convoluted system reminiscent of 1990s web design, stating it undermines the cultural ethos of hospitality and directly damages the nation’s economic potential.
