- Saturday, April 27, 2024
The response from the world body comes a day after the US also reacted to a similar question on Kejriwal’s arrest in an alleged liquor policy scam of his government.
By: Shubham Ghosh
AFTER countries such as Germany and the US, the United Nations has spoken over the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, one of India’s major opposition leaders and the chief minister of Delhi. A spokesperson for the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, has said that the international body is optimistic that in India and any other country that is holding elections, people’s “political and civil rights” are “protected” and everyone can vote in a “free and fair” atmosphere.
The spokesperson, Stefanie Dujarric, made the remarks on Thursday (28) while responding to a question on the “political unrest” in India ahead of the upcoming general elections beginning April 19 in the wake of the arrest of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and freezing of the bank accounts of the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party.
“What we very much hope that in India, as in any country that is having elections, that everyone’s rights are protected, including political and civil rights, and everyone is able to vote in an atmosphere that is free and fair,” Dujarric said at the daily press briefing Thursday.
Read: Despite the trouble, Arvind Kejriwal is India’s only opposition leader who can take on Modi’s BJP
The response from the UN comes a day after the US also reacted to a similar question on Kejriwal’s arrest in an alleged liquor policy scam of his government and freezing of the Congress party’s accounts.
On Wednesday (27), hours after India summoned a senior US diplomat to protest remarks on Kejriwal’s arrest, Washington reiterated that it encourages fair, transparent, timely legal processes.
Read: After Germany, US seeks ‘fair’ process in India opposition leader arrest
On the US diplomat being summoned in Delhi, US state department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “I’m not going to talk about any private diplomatic conversations. But of course what we have said publicly is what I just said from here, that we encourage fair, transparent, timely legal processes. We don’t think anyone should object to that, and we’ll make the same thing clear privately.”
Officials of the Indian ministry of external affairs (MEA) summoned the US’s acting deputy chief of mission Gloria Berbena to their office in South Block in the Indian capital. The meeting lasted for more than 30 minutes.
On Thursday, India said the US state department’s recent remarks on the arrest of Kejriwal are “unwarranted” and asserted the country is “proud of its independent and robust democratic institutions” and committed to protect them from any form of undue external influences.
Any “external imputation” on India’s electoral and legal processes is “completely unacceptable”, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in New Delhi during his weekly press briefing.
In India, legal processes are driven “only by the rule of law”, Jaiswal said on Thursday.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in a statement that India took strong objection to the remarks of the spokesperson of the US state department about certain legal proceedings in India.
“India’s legal processes are based on an independent judiciary which is committed to objective and timely outcomes. Casting aspersions on that is unwarranted,” the MEA had said.
The Enforcement Directorate, India’s economic crime-fighting agency, has arrested Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the excise policy ‘scam’.
Before US officials, the Germany foreign ministry made a remark on Kejriwal’s arrest saying the latter is “entitled to a fair and impartial trial”, leading to a quick backlash from the Indian side that alleged it was a “blatant interference” in the country’s internal affairs.
New Delhi also summoned the deputy head of mission of the German Embassy, George Enzweiler, to lodge an official protest.
(With PTI inputs)
