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India said Washington’s call for fairness in legal cases related to opposition parties was “unwarranted” and “unacceptable”.

“In India, legal processes are driven only by the Rule of Law,” according to a statement from India’s Ministry of External Affairs. “Anyone who has similar ethos, especially fellow democracies, should have no difficulty in appreciating this fact.”

The US has now twice called for India to carry our a fair and timely legal process following political developments in India just before the country heads for national elections. 

The exchange of comments between the two countries comes after the arrest of the Delhi chief minister and the freezing of accounts for the India’s main opposition Congress party. 

The US encourages “fair, transparent, and timely legal processes for each of these issues,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington Wednesday. “We don’t think anyone should object to that, and we’ll make the same thing clear privately.”

India’s government this week summoned a top US diplomat in India, Gloria Berbena, over the comments made by the State Department regarding the arrest of opposition leader Arvind Kejriwal, who is also the chief minister of Delhi, Bloomberg News reported. “India has lodged its strong objection and protest with the senior official from the US Embassy with regard to the comments made by the US State Department,” read India’s statement on Thursday.  

The diplomatic tensions over India’s opposition could pose a problem for US President Joe Biden. He has been trying to court India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is expected to win a third straight term, as Washington seeks to bring nations together to form a united front against China’s assertiveness in the Asia Pacific. 

Miller declined to comment on India summoning Berbena, saying he was not going to talk about any private diplomatic conversations.

India raised similar objections after German officials commented on Kejriwal’s arrest. Germany’s deputy chief of mission was summoned to a meeting to register New Delhi’s disapproval, according to a March 23 statement from the Ministry of External Affairs.

India’s federal anti-money laundering agency arrested Kejriwal last week in relation to a bribery case, triggering a storm of criticism from opposition parties who are accusing Modi’s government of using such agencies to target them. Kejriwal’s party governs Delhi, the capital, and the northern Indian state of Punjab. 

Hours before Kejriwal’s arrest, the Congress party held a press conference and accused Modi’s government of trying to cripple them financially after the Income Tax Department froze their bank accounts. Both Congress and Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party have said Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is destroying what should be a level-playing field for the elections.

The BJP has refuted any suggestion of deliberate targeting of the opposition and has defended the government’s actions as necessary to root out widespread corruption.

(Updates with India’s comments in first two paragraphs)

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