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Washington, August 23:: Senator Joseph Biden, an influential Congressman supporting landmark Indo-US nuclear deal, was picked up by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as his running mate on Saturday.
The 65-year-old Democrat Senator, who had suggested that helping India to meet its growing energy needs will be in the interest of the US, emerged as Obama's choice after a long political suspense as other contenders gradually fell away, media reports said.
Biden, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, brings years of experience that could help counter arguments that an Obama administration would be inexperienced on foreign policy.
The influential Congressmen will be the key player in moving the US-India civilian nuclear agreement forward in Congress when the final package of the deal gets there.
Biden, who is currently serving out his sixth term, also ran for the 1988 and this year's Democratic presidential nomination but dropped out. He was first elected to the Senate in 1972 at the age of 29.
Biden will make his first big speech as the VP candidate on Wednesday -- the third night of the Democratic convention.
Biden recently lauded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for deciding to go ahead with the deal notwithstanding the withdrawal of the Left Front, and expressed hope that the deal could be completed before the Congress adjourned.
"I am going to push like the devil... if they (India) get their end done to do it," he had said. He along with two other senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- Senators John F Kerry, a Democrat like Biden, and Chuck Hagel, a Republican – visited Singh in New Delhi early this year.
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