Liquor Policy Case: The ED has arrested Kejriwal in a cash laundering case.
United Nations:
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has mentioned we very a lot “hope” that in India and any country that is having elections, people’s “political and civil rights” are “protected” and everyone can vote in a “free and honest” atmosphere.
Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric made these remarks on Thursday while he was responding to a question on the “political unrest” in India ahead of the upcoming national elections in the wake of the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the freezing of the opposition Congress Party’s bank accounts.
“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.
The response from the United Nations comes a day after the US also reacted to a similar question on Mr Kejriwal’s arrest and freezing of the Congress party’s bank accounts.
On Wednesday, hours after India summoned a senior US diplomat to protest remarks on Mr Kejriwal’s arrest, Washington reiterated that it encourages fair, transparent, timely legal processes.
Read | “Unwarranted, Unacceptable”: India On US Remarks On Arvind Kejriwal 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.”
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) officials summoned 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 Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are “unwarranted” and asserted the country is “pleased with its impartial and sturdy democratic establishments” and committed to protect them from any form of undue external influences.
Any “exterior imputation” on India’s electoral and legal processes is “utterly unacceptable”, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal mentioned in New Delhi throughout his weekly press briefing.
Read | US Speaks Again On Arvind Kejriwal, Mentions Frozen Congress Accounts
In India, authorized processes are pushed “solely by the rule of legislation”, Mr Jaiswal mentioned on Thursday.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had mentioned in a press release that India took robust objection to the remarks of the Spokesperson of the US State Department about sure authorized 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 mentioned. The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Kejriwal in a cash laundering case linked to the excise coverage ‘rip-off’.
The case pertains to alleged corruption and cash laundering in formulating and executing the Delhi authorities’s excise coverage for 2021-22 which was later scrapped.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
