India should ensure fair polls in Maldives |
Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed has urged India to ensure that free and fair elections take place in his country in 2018, as he prepares to contest polls again. Nasheed, who recently visited Colombo to meet his party leaders and workers, told TOI that India had a `moral obligation` to ensure inclusive elections in the archipelago. India must build the necessary leverages to make it happen. Nasheed was deposed in a coup in 2012.Even as he continues to live in exile in London, Nasheed and his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) continue to hold promise of pro-India governance in the strategically located country in the Indian Ocean which has been flooded by loans and grants from China. While India has made its peace with the Abdulla Yameen government, New Delhi remains anxious about political instability and growing radicalisation in the country. Maldives` embrace of China as its main development partner too remains a major source of concern for India in its neighbourhood. Maldives continues to express commitment to what it describes as its `India first` policy but it remains the only country in Saarc which PM Narendra Modi hasn`t visited yet. In fact, Modi cancelled his visit to Male in 2015 because of political turmoil there.
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