‘Legal processes driven only by rule of law’: MEA rejects US remarks on Arvind Kejriwal, Congress

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, March 28

Foreign Office spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal again hit back at its American counterpart for doubling down on his comments on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and for also making observations on the tax authorities freezing the Congress’ bank accounts.

Jaiswal also felt the US, a fellow democracy with similar methods of governance as India, should have no difficulty in appreciating the fact that “legal processes here are driven only by rule of law”.

Completely unacceptable

The comments by the US State Department for the second day running are unwarranted. Any such external imputation on our electoral and legal processes is completely unacceptable. —Randhir Jaiswal, Foreign office spokesperson

He termed the comments by the US State Department for the second day running as “unwarranted” and said “any such external imputation on our electoral and legal processes is completely unacceptable. The MEA, he reminded, had already lodged a strong protests on his observations on Kejriwal’s arrest made on Wednesday.

“India is proud of its independent and robust democratic institutions. We are committed to shielding them from any external influences. Mutual respect and understanding form the foundation of international relations and states are expected to be respectful of sovereignty and internal affairs of others,” the spokesperson said.

Despite the South Block serving a demarche on Washington for its comments on the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the US State Department in its latest media briefing late on Wednesday night not only repeated its comments but opened another front by commenting on the IT department freezing the bank accounts of the Congress.

On the Congress issue, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “We are also aware of the Congress’ allegations that tax authorities have frozen some of their bank accounts in a manner that will make it challenging to effectively campaign in the upcoming elections, and we encourage fair, transparent, and timely legal processes for each of these issues.”

Miller was asked to respond to the recent political turmoil in India, including the freezing of the Opposition party’s bank account, and if the crackdown on the Opposition had “reached a crisis point ahead of national elections”.

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