Former Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma on Thursday (February 12, 2026) accused Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of “deliberately misleading” Parliament on the agreements reached at the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Bali in December 2013.

In a statement, Mr. Sharma said the Minister’s claim that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had “sold out” India’s right to food security at the Bali meeting was “false, incorrect and contrary to facts on record and the WTO’s official statements”. The remarks had been made to justify the government’s interim trade deal with the United States, he said.

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“In her desperation to justify and defend the sellout interim trade deal with U.S., she has levelled an unfair allegation that the Congress-led UPA government sold out India’s right to food security at the WTO meeting in Bali. This is false and incorrect, contradicts the facts on record, and the WTO’s official statement,” Mr. Sharma said.

It was India that had forced the issue of public stockholding for food security onto the Bali agenda despite opposition from the U.S., the European Union, the Cairns Group, and other developed countries, Mr. Sharma said. India built a coalition of developing countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, compelling developed nations to agree to negotiate a permanent solution to amend what India considered “dated and unjust” WTO rules, he said.

The Bali ministerial secured protection for developing countries from any challenge at the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism until a permanent solution on public stockholding was reached. India, he added, agreed to the wider WTO package only after securing this protection.

Mr. Sharma described the Bali outcome as a “resounding victory” for developing countries and said he had made statements to that effect in both Houses of Parliament in December 2013.

Despite assurances in 2014 that a permanent solution would be finalised by December 2015, the issue remains unresolved more than a decade later, the Congress leader said.