Speaker Abdul Raheem departs to India on official visit

Speaker Abdul Raheem, on Tuesday, has departed to India’s capital New Delhi on an official visit.

According to the Parliament Secretariat, the Speaker is travelling to India to participate 28th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth, which is being held in New Delhi from Tuesday to January 28th.

The Speaker is accompanied by a delegation comprising of Hulhudhoo MP Mohamed Shahid, and Parliament’s Chief of Bureau Ahmed Nihan Hussain Manik and Senior Foreign Relations Officer Aminath Eaman.

Speaker Abdul Raheem’s trip to India comes as parliamentary works out of session are underway which includes crucial amendments to combine the main two elections in the Maldives, presidential and parliamentary, and shorten the term of the incumbent 20th parliamentary assembly to accommodate this change.

The Speaker had undertaken an official visit to India in February of last year at the invitation of Om Birla, Speaker of Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s Parliament and India’s vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar.

During this visit, Speaker Abdul Raheem met with Birla, Dhankhar and other senior officials from the Indian government.

Abdul Raheem is a top figure from ruling PNC,  had run its 2023 presidential elections campaign on an ‘India Out’ pledge, alleging Indian military presence in the Maldives.

Relations between Male’ and New Delhi had been strained in the early days of President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s presidency after he demanded that India withdraw its troops from Maldives. Things escalated further after three Maldivian deputy ministers made disparaging remarks regarding India and Indian Prime Minister Modi following a social media post promoting India’s Lakshadweep as an alternative tourist destination to the Maldives.

The Maldives Foreign Ministry was quick to distance itself from the remarks, saying that they do not represent the views of the Male’ government. 

But despite the earlier turmoil, officials from both Male’ and Delhi repeatedly expressed keenness to maintaining relations and engaged in several high-level visits between the two countries, including state visits between the leaders of the nation.