HYDERABAD (The Thursday Times) — India has stopped 115 of the 315 speakers invited to a Congress-backed summit in Hyderabad from entering the country, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says, setting off a fresh row between the opposition party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
The foreign ministry did not dispute the figure or explain the decisions. “Visa matters are sovereign functions of any country or any government,” its spokesman, Randhir Jaiswal, said when asked about the cancellations. The home ministry did not respond immediately.
The two-day Bharat Summit, now in its second edition, opened on Friday and ends on Saturday. About 1,000 participants from India and 70 other countries were expected to discuss climate change, infrastructure, and investment. Telangana’s Congress government presents it as a curtain-raiser for the Invest Telangana Global Summit, due in Hyderabad in December.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy told a news conference that the foreign and home ministries had kept out people who question Modi, though he did not say how many. “I don’t understand why the BJP is worried about diverse oppositional voices. Narendra Modi thinks he is a dictator who can stifle all voices,” he said.
Tharoor questioned the legal basis for the cancellations and said they came so late that none could be reversed before the summit closed. “What a shame that a proud democracy has become so insecure that it must stifle any voices it fears will be critical,” he wrote. Another Congress MP, Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy, said nearly 30 per cent of the invitees had been unable to travel because of visa problems.
Among them is Helle Lyng, the Norwegian journalist who challenged Modi over press freedom in Oslo in May. She was due to speak on the future of the media on Saturday, but says the Indian embassy in Norway told her she could not travel, despite holding a visa and political clearance, because of “orders from above” in the home ministry.
The BJP has attacked the event. Union minister G. Kishan Reddy, a senior party leader in Telangana, said the summit was meant to bring together forces critical of India. The party’s state president, N. Ramchander Rao, called it an “anti-India summit” and asked why the state government was spending crores of rupees on it while short of money, accusing Revanth Reddy of sponsoring “anti-India forces” to please Rahul Gandhi.
Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, is due to address the summit on Saturday and launch Telangana’s policy for gig and platform workers, Revanth Reddy said. “What is wrong with that?” he asked. Former Union minister Salman Khurshid, who appeared alongside him, said the organisers wanted Hyderabad to become a centre for global debate in the way Davos is.
