MALDIVIAN Member of Parliament, Meekail Ahmed Naseem, has requested the Maldivian Parliamentarian speaker Mohamed Aslam to summon the Foreign Minister and has also demanded the ‘immediate termination’ of the Deputy Ministers who made derogatory comments against Indians and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Meekail, who is an Opposition MP from the South Galolhu constituency in Male, said that the request was made on Monday, and while the official date for the Parliament to reconvene is February, he is still trying to hold the special session during the recess. Amid the ongoing row between India and the Maldives, another Opposition leader and the Chairperson of the Maldivian Democratic Party, Fayyaz Ismail, has called for a “tougher stand” by the Government, saying that the racist comments against India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were just isolated individual opinions of these people who were unfortunately given positions in the Government. He underlined how the entire matter has reached a lot of Indians as well as Maldivians, due to easy accessibility of social media. Maldivian MP Meekail said, “I requested the Speaker to summon the Foreign Minister to the Parliament for questioning regarding the derogatory remarks by some of the Government’s senior officials the day before yesterday. And while the Parliament is still in recess, we are trying to hold a special session within the recess for the summons.”

 

Acknowledging that the current Maldivian Government “hasn’t done enough” in their response to the row, Meekail went on to say that Muizzu’s Government should terminate the Deputy Ministers. “I think suspension is not the right way to go about it. And I think we have had a very strong and valuable relationship with India. And I think the ruling party needs to weigh what the Maldives requires more with. What the Maldives values more. Whether it values its relationship with India or it is holding the relationship and the loyalty the said deputy ministers have, with the ruling party as more important”, he added. On President Muizzu’s China visit and on defying his predecessor’s old tradition of visiting India as their first foreign destination, the Maldivian MP expressed his disappointment with the current Government’s foreign policy adding that it is ‘concerning’ to see ‘lack of transparency’ while dealing with China.

 

“I am sad to see that Maldives has steered away from its age-old foreign policy which would always put India first and it was a very balanced foreign policy approach. Where I think we understood the realities of our geography as well as our mutual strategic interests. So, it is very disappointing that the government has taken this approach”, said Meekail. Lauding the Indian assistance to the Maldives, Meekail hailed New Delhi’s strong support and underlined how the latter has always stood by the island nation in testing times. “I personally believe the Government should take a tougher stand on that because this goes beyond Government to Government. Now, because of the easy accessibility of social media, this has reached to a lot of Indians and to a lot of Maldivians. And as arguments take over from both side, there has been lot of insults coming back and forth. So the Government needs to show that there was no intention on the part of the Government. These were just isolated individual opinions of these people who, unfortunately, were given positions in the Government. So that needs to be clearly shown to the Indians, to the Maldivians, and to the entire world at large,” he said.