India, Feb. 11 -- The India-US interim trade deal looks more like a "pre-committed purchase agreement" that overturns every principle of reciprocity, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday and slammed Union ministers S Jaishankar and Piyush Goyal for playing "ping pong" when questions are posed.

Initiating a debate in the Lok Sabha on the Union Budget, Tharoor said the government's claim that India has secured a "better deal" than China, Vietnam, or other Asian economies does not withstand scrutiny.

"While India may have obtained tariff reductions of one or two percentage points, no East Asian economy has agreed to deliberately dilute its trade surplus with the United States through guaranteed purchase commitments," he said.

The Co...