New York: Referring to the full consensus achieved by the New Delhi Declaration, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that many people were surprised when India was able to get everybody together.

Notably, the New Delhi Declaration adopted at the conclusion of the G20 Summit had 100 per cent consensus of all member nations in all 83 paras.

This was one of the biggest achievements of India’s presidency, as it got together all Western countries, China, Russia to other developing countries on the same page on every issue, including a polarizing one as the Russia-Ukraine war.

Speaking at the Think Tank event, 'South Rising-Partnership, Institution and Ideas' in New York, Jaishankar said, “On the G20 Summit, a lot of folks were still surprised that we actually got everybody together. I don't think they completely expected that. So there'll be one set of people who are still wondering how that happened”.

He further added that the G20, under India's presidency, got to focus on ‘global growth and development’, the primary purpose for which the grouping was formed.

“The other part, which I think includes some people with me here now has appreciated that we got the G20 to focus on the Global South and that the job for which the G20 was created, which was global growth and development, we got them to refocus on it and with particular attention to the Global South. We did that partly by organizing a Global South summit in advance,” he added.

Earlier, the EAM also addressed the ‘India-UN for Global South: Delivering for Development’ event in New York, where he stated that India's G20 Presidency was challenging due to a "very sharp East-West polarization and a very deep North-South divide."

"Now, it was a challenging summit. It was actually a challenging presidency, and it was challenging because we were confronting a very sharp East-West polarization as well as a very deep North-South divide. But we were very determined as the Presidency of the G20 to make sure that this organization on which the world really had put so much hope and was able to get back to its core agenda," he added.

Jaishankar stressed that the core agenda of India's G20 Presidency was global growth and development. He said that India began its G20 Presidency by convening the voice of the Global South Summit.

"And its core agenda was of global growth and development. So it was appropriate that we started our G20 Presidency by convening the voice of the Global South Summit. An exercise which involved 125 nations of the south of which most of you in some capacity participated," Jaishankar said.