External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday alleged that there is an ongoing political effort from different sources to depict the Indian government in a certain way.
The minister, who is presently in the US, further said that there is a difference between the political image that has been “concocted” with the actual governance of the Modi government.
Jaishankar’s remarks came during a session on ‘India: Opportunities and challenges for a strategic partnership’ with the former US National Security Advisor (NSA) General HR McMaster.
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The session was organised by Hoover Intuition in the US where Jaishankar explained that India is going through "a very stressful time" because of the pandemic.
He went on to explain the "anonymous" efforts of the Modi government, saying it provided relief to over a billion people with food and money.
“We are actually giving free food to as many as 800 million people. We’ve put money into the bank accounts of 400 million people. This is what this government did,” he said.
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“Now, if you are feeding more than two and a half times the population of the US and you are funding more than the population of the US and you’re doing this pretty much anonymously. We’re not asking anything more. There are no criteria of discrimination,” the foreign minister said.
He ended his part by showing confidence in the democracy and plurality of the country.
“So I think when you come down to real governance judgments, you find that there is a difference between the political imagery that has been concocted and actually the governance record out there. So I think you should take it for what it is, which is really politics at play. I certainly see that very much as part of a political effort to depict our current government in a certain way,” he added. “We Indians are extremely confident about our democracy… India is a deeply pluralistic society,” the minister said.
