India is committed to protect its democratic institutions from "undue external influences", the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday, reacting to the US State Department's comments on the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the freezing of bank accounts of main opposition Congress Party over suspected tax irregularities.
"The recent remarks by the State Department are unwarranted. Any such external imputation on our electoral and legal processes is completely unacceptable," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a regular briefing on Thursday.
"In India," he continued, "legal processes are driven only by the rule of law. Anyone who has similar ethos, especially fellow democracies, should have no difficulty in appreciating this fact."
The reaction came a day after the US State Department reiterated its comment on the arrest of Kejriwal, who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for allegedly receiving kickbacks in distributing liquor licenses under the now scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22.
"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," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday.
The American statement was made hours after the MEA lodged a protest with Gloria Berbena, the American deputy chief of mission in New Delhi, over the State Department's previous comment on Kejriwal's arrest.
A statement issued by the MEA on Wednesday cautioned that not respecting New Delhi's sovereignty could "end up setting unhealthy precedents".