India did not try to interfere in Canadian politics, said an official investigating into the allegations of foreign meddling in the Canadian elections, reported NDTV. As per the probe, a panel of senior Canadian officials monitoring the 2021 elections were not informed of any attempt by New Delhi to influence the national polls.
“I do not believe during the 2021 election that we saw evidence of the Government of India using those tools in the campaign,” an election official told the panel of investigators.
The development comes days after the Canada Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) alleged that India and Pakistan made attempts to interfere in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian elections.
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However, according to the testimony in an official probe, the Canadian intelligence agency found that China did interfere in the last two elections in Canada, as per the NDTV report.
Both the 2019 and 2021 elections were won by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party. The Canadian PM had set up a commission to probe the allegations of foreign meddling under pressure from opposition legislators unhappy about media reports on China’s possible role.
Trudeau is slated to testify before the poll panel on Thursday.
Following the allegations of interference, India refuted the claims as “baseless” adding that it is not the Centre’s policy to interfere in the democratic processes of other countries.
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In February, the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal said: “…we have seen media reports about the Canadian Commission enquiring into foreign interference and there have been some related developments as well. We strongly reject all such baseless allegations of Indian interference in Canadian elections.”
“It is not the Government of India’s policy to interfere in democratic processes of other countries,” he said.
“Quite on the reverse, it is Canada which has been interfering in our internal affairs. We have been raising this issue regularly with them. We continue to call on Canada to take effective measures to address our core concerns,” said the MEA spokesperson.