'India would never...': Ex-Maldives President backs New Delhi, trashes report claiming plot to remove Muizzu

Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed on Monday rejected a report that claimed India was in talks with the opposition party in the island nation to remove pro-China Mohamed Muizzu. Nasheed said that he was unaware of any such "serious plot" against the President. "Tho(ugh) some ppl always live in conspiracy," the former president said. "India would never back such a move, as they always support Maldives’ democracy. India has never dictated terms to us, either."

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that the Maldivian opposition politicians proposed bribing 40 members of parliament, including those from Muizzu's own party, to impeach him. An internal document, the report said, also proposed paying 10 senior army and police officers and three powerful criminal gangs to ensure Muizzu's removal. 

To pay off the various parties, the conspirators sought 87 million Maldivian rufiyaa, or $6 million, and it would be sought from India. "After months of secret talks, the plotters failed to gather enough votes to impeach Muizzu, and India did not pursue or finance an attempt to oust him."

Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal trashed the report, saying what is the point in writing an "investigative" article and presenting it as a big scoop "when, as the article says, the plot was not pursued?" He suggested that the report was making a mountain out of a molehill.

Sibal further said that the absurdity of the article is manifest when it says "one of the middlemen used by RAW was an ex-Indian cop in the US who met with a senior RAW official at the DC embassy, according to surveillance records given to us by a source close to Muizzu".

"Why should RAW use an ex-Indian cop in the US for an operation in Maldives in consultation with a senior RAW official in our mission in Washington? They have no India-based operatives closer to Maldives? In Sri Lanka? And why trust an ex-cop in the US who is likely to be under watch by US intelligence?" Sibal wondered.   

"And this information is available to WP from the surveillance records given to the journalists us by a source from Muizzu’s set-up. Great! Maldives intelligence knows what is happening in our embassy in the US? Its reach is astounding! Or is it the US intelligence feeding all this nonsense to WP through Maldives?"

The former secretary said that the purpose of this article was to create suspicion in India-Maldives relations now that they have improved, "possibly to  the discomfiture of those who have destabilised India-Bangladesh relations, and those wanting to target RAW in the light of allegations around the Pannun affair."