Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi on Friday, the Congress sought to put the history of India-Russia ties back in focus, saying the strategic relationship being showcased today rests on foundations laid decades before the Modi government came to power.Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh traced the partnership from Jawaharlal Nehru and the Soviet era to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, arguing that despite Modi’s “self-advertisement”, India’s close relationship with Moscow had been built and strengthened by successive governments.Also read: PM Modi holds talks with President Putin; $100-billion bilateral trade target by 2030 on agendaRamesh said the Soviet Union had been an “invaluable partner” in India’s development from the 1950s, contributing to the creation of capabilities in steel, heavy engineering, mining, power, oil and gas, chemicals, defence, space and nuclear energy.He traced the foundations of that cooperation to Nehru’s 16-day visit to the Soviet Union in July 1955, followed by the 20-day India visit of Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev in November-December that year.Another defining moment, Ramesh said, came with the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, signed in New Delhi on August 9, 1971, after more than two years of negotiations. He described the agreement as being of “tremendous strategic significance”.The collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 brought a period of uncertainty, but Ramesh said the bilateral relationship regained momentum from 1998, first through Russian statesman Yevgeny Primakov and subsequently under Putin.The Congress leader also invoked the BrahMos missile programme to underline the continuity of strategic cooperation across governments.He said the Indo-Russian joint venture, which had been years in the making, was taken forward under Putin and then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and subsequently expanded during Manmohan Singh’s tenure, with facilities established in New Delhi, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram.“The point is simple: whatever the self-advertisement by Mr. Modi, there has been a history of strong ties between India and Russia, the solid foundations of which were laid during the 1950s-1980s,” Ramesh said.His remarks came as Modi and Putin met in Delhi ahead of the BRICS Summit, with trade, energy and defence among the major areas on the bilateral agenda.Ramesh also recalled former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to IIT Bombay on December 22, 2010, when he stopped at what the Congress leader described as a largely forgotten symbol of early Indo-Soviet cooperation on the campus.Sharing its photograph, Ramesh added a personal footnote: the spot, located next to the P C Saxena Lecture Theatre, had been part of his daily life between 1963 and 1975.