Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu prepares to visit New Delhi as early as next week to reinvigorate ties between the two nations. The news comes at the back of a confirmation that two ministers who had been suspended for derogatory tweets against India and Prime Minister Modi have resigned on Tuesday.
Heena Waled the spokesperson for President Muizzu confirmed the upcoming visit to India at the earliest convenience of the two countries. The relations between India and Maldives seem to be taking another turn, this time for the better.
Historically the countries have shared excellent reactions across the decades and India has been Maldives most preferred partner in a variety of sectors. But since President Mohamed Muizzu’s election win, Maldives had been distancing itself consistently from India.
Mohamed Muizzu’s election campaign consisted of a strong ‘India Out’ faction. He himself sported the slogan many times, assuring that if he was elected he would make Indian troops leave the island nation and will change the Maldives policy of ‘India First’.
Muizzu and his party made India’s limited presence on the island a huge electoral issue. As soon as he won the elections Muizzu proceeded to put pressure on India to remove its personnel.
India agreed to some terms of Maldives and replaced its military personnel with civilians, this was declared as a victory of Muizzu’s promises back home. Conversely Prime Minister Modi also decided to distance from Maldives and promoted Lakshadweep as a new tourist destination instead.
Three Maldivian ministers which included Malsha Shareef, Mariyam Shiuna and Abdulla Mahzoom Majid went on to criticise PM Modi’s visit to Lakshadweep to promote local tourism, including calling the indian PM a “clown,” “terrorist,” and a “puppet of Israel.” President Muizzu suspended the three ministers for the same. What started out as a diplomatic tussle ended up as a public slandering match between the two nations.
Over time though, relations have thawed and Muizzu has softened his stance towards India. He has apparently also dropped the plans to replace Indian presence with Chinese. Maldives Foreign Minister Moosa Zameer visited India in May. A month later President Muizzu attended Modi’s swearing-in ceremony.
Last month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Male, in the first high-level visit to the Maldives since Muizzu was elected, to discuss all areas of bilateral cooperation to deepen the partnership between India and Maldives.
New Delhi and Male even held a defence dialogue in New Delhi last week, where they discussed “ongoing defence cooperation projects” and “forthcoming bilateral military exercises”. It was the first dialogue since India withdrew its uniformed military personnel from the Maldives earlier this year.
The two suspended ministers Malsha Shareef and Maryam Shiuna who had made the derogatory comments have also now resigned. As President Muizzu prepares to travel to New Delhi to revitalise and reinvigorate the age old ties between the two neighbours.