After India summoned a senior US diplomat to lodge a protest over remarks on the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Washington on Wednesday stressed that it encourages fair, transparent, timely legal processes and “we don’t think anyone should object to that.
“We continue to follow these actions closely, including the arrest of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal,” US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Miller was responding to a question during the State Department briefing over India summoning Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Gloria Berbena in New Delhi as well as on freezing of Congress party’s bank accounts.
“We are also aware of the Congress party’s 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.
“With respect to your first question, 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. We’ll make the same thing clear privately,” Miller said.
Ministry of External Affairs officials summoned the Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Gloria Berbena at its office in South Block in Delhi and lodged a strong protest against a US State Department official’s remarks on Kejriwal’s arrest.
The meeting lasted for more than 30 minutes.
Reports suggested that a US State Department official had said that Washington “encouraged a fair, transparent and timely legal process for chief minister Kejriwal”.
The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the excise policy ‘scam’.
