Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said 115 Bharat Summit speakers were denied entry or had visas cancelled despite government clearance. Tharoor noted, "What a shame that a proud democracy has become so insecure that it must stifle any voices it fears will be critical!" The event concludes on Saturday in Hyderabad.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who has guided the organisers of the Bharat Summit on the visa process for foreign delegates, said on X on Friday that many with valid visas could not enter India.
Like Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng Svendsen, who was informed of her visa cancellation minutes before she left for the airport on Wednesday, Tharoor also pointed a finger at home minister Amit Shah.
The Congress leader said on X: "A disappointing footnote to the #BharatSummit proceedings: when I got to Hyderabad, I learned that 115 of the 315 speakers whom the External Affairs Ministry had cleared for the event ended up being refused entry to India or having their visas cancelled, apparently on the instructions of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
"It is completely unclear under what provision of law the government has taken such a drastic step, but it is obviously impossible to reverse it since the conference concludes tomorrow. What a shame that a proud democracy has become so insecure that it must stifle any voices it fears will be critical!"
The Bharat Summit, organised by the Congress-led Telangana government, brought together politicians, think tanks, business people, journalists and researchers from across the world who are known to espouse progressive or liberal views.
Almost all the political functionaries are from the Socialist International and the Progressive Alliance -- global centre-left political internationals -- that the Congress is a member of. The Congress is a founding member of the alliance.
Pushparaj Deshpande, founder of the Samruddha Bharat Foundation that curated the conference which ends on Saturday, confirmed Tharoor's claims. Even among those who made it, he said, former Ivory Coast Prime Minister Pascal Affi N'Guessan was questioned at Hyderabad airport for six hours.
Deshpande said: "We are trying to create a global south platform in the national interest and the government of India should be supportive of the fact that we are trying to further national interest. Instead, they are trying to ruin this summit just because they want to score cheap political points.
"Today's Opposition is tomorrow's government. Do you (Centre) not really want to give the Opposition the chance to have those relationships that they're going to need to further the national interest? And, they (NDA) are anyway on the way out."
N'Guessan's office told this paper that his communications secretary was denied a visa. Asked about the visa cancellations at the behest of the MHA, external affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters: "Visa matters are the sovereign function of any country or government."