After Norwegian journalist, EDP adviser alleges visa denial over party’s support for Rahul Gandhi | Hyderabad News
Hyderabad: After Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng Svendsen, adviser to the European Democratic Party (EDP), Alessio De Giorgi has taken to social media to allege that he was denied a visa to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad. He claimed that an Indian consul in Brussels questioned him over his party’s support for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.On Nov 11, Svendsen posted a video questioning Union home minister Amit Shah over why his ministry had intervened to cancel her visa despite it having been granted. A day later, senior Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor claimed that 115 of the 315 speakers cleared by the Ministry of External Affairs for the summit had either been denied entry into India or had their visas cancelled, apparently on the instructions of the Ministry of Home Affairs.In a social media post on Nov 14, De Giorgi, EDP’s strategic communications adviser, said he was among those unable to attend the summit. He claimed that he was summoned by the Indian consul in Brussels, who showed him a video of the European political party expressing support for Rahul Gandhi.According to De Giorgi, the consul told him that the party’s support for the Congress leader amounted to “foreign interference”. Reacting to this, he wrote: “A European political party supporting a democratic opposition leader is apparently a threat to India. Not an international conspiracy. Not a security threat. A video.”He said the consul subsequently informed him that his visa application would undergo further scrutiny. “Translation from diplomatic language: forget about attending the summit,” De Giorgi wrote, adding that his visa never arrived. He said he had responded that he was confident his visa would be granted if India was truly the great democracy it claimed to be.Clarifying his position, De Giorgi said his criticism was directed at the govt, not India. He accused the government of being unable to distinguish between the state and the party in power, and said a strong democracy should not be afraid of opposition parties or differing opinions.“If defending your democracy requires preventing democrats from meeting, perhaps the problem is not with those you are keeping out. It is with what is happening inside,” he added.
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