Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Adviser Blames ‘Modi Govt’

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Adviser Blames ‘Modi Govt’

Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s long-time adviser Gerald Butts has accused the Narendra Modi government of actively trying to sabotage his February 2018 India visit, that was beset with controversies, in order to help his Conservative rivals. The Canadian Prime Minister’s visit to India was widely panned because of his dressing in traditional Indian attire, which was described by some as “too Indian for an Indian”. In the same trip, the Canadian PM’s wife Sophie Gregoire was photographed next to Jaspal Atwal, a Sikh terrorist convicted of trying to assassinate Punjab minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu in Vancouver in 1986. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and released on parole in the 1990s.

“We walked into a buzzsaw... (Narendra) Modi and his government were out to screw us and were throwing tacks under our tires to help Canadian conservatives, who did a good job of embarrassing us,” Butts is quoted as saying in a new book by National Post political columnist, John Ivison, “Trudeau: The Education of a Prime Minister”, scheduled to be released next week. Atwal was invited on the India trip by Liberal MP Randeep Sarai.

After the visit, in a background briefing arranged by Trudeau’s office, a government official suggested that Atwal’s presence was arranged by factions within the Indian government who wanted to prevent Prime Minister Modi from getting too cosy with a foreign government they believe is not committed to a united India. India’s Ministry of External Affairs in a statement had rejected as “baseless” the suggestion that the Indian government had any role in Atwal being invited to events that Trudeau attended during his India visit. (IANS)

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