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WASHINGTON: Stalwarts of the Democratic Party, including two Presidential candidates, have come out in support of Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal in her spat with New Delhi and criticized the Indian government for excluding her from meeting with external affairs minister S Jaishankar earlier this week.In doing so, they ignored India’s explanation that the minister’s meeting was with the House Foreign Relations Committee, a Congressional panel of which she is not a member, and she tried to impose herself on the engagement. A similar meeting with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting took place without any problems because it was confined to members of the panel.The flare-up, an extension of what is evidently a growing political and ideological mistrust between liberal US lawmakers and the Modi dispensation in India, showed in tweets by Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris among others who pilloried New Delhi for what they saw as India’s boycott of Jayapal. “Shutting out US lawmakers who are standing up for human rights is what we expect from authoritarian regimes — not the government of India. Ms. Jayapal is right. She must not be excluded for being outspoken about the unacceptable crackdown on Kashmiris and Muslims,” Sanders, who was the first Democratic presidential candidate to oppose India’s abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, tweeted.Jayapal also found support from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, who tweeted “It’s wrong for any foreign government to tell Congress what members are allowed in meetings on Capitol Hill.” That sentiment was echoed by Congressman Jim McGovern, who also tweeted that “No foreign government should dictate who is or isn’t allowed into meetings on Capitol Hill.”But Indian officials are saying the lawmakers are essentially grandstanding and mischaracterizing what happened. The Indian minister’s scheduled meeting was with the HFAC leadership, Jayapal is not a member of the panel, and she was insinuating herself into the meeting with a specific agenda, having already proposed a legislation condemning New Delhi even before she could engage with the minister. Several of her colleagues, the so-called progressive, radical members of the party such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, have taken on an ideological position on India’s domestic legislative actions.Expectedly, the issue has polarized critics and supporters (Indians, Americans, and Indian-Americans) of the Modi government. The former group says Jaishankar should have meet Jayapal regardless of protocol because he is well-placed to explain what exactly is happening in India (because, among other things, he is himself an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, the leftist bastion). But those supporting the government stand say accepting a violation of protocol will simply take India down a slippery slope. Besides, it is not as if any Indian MP can seek and get a meeting with a visiting US secretary of state and raise issues like civil liberties and minority rights in US.Both sides though are concerned that New Delhi maybe slipping in the bipartisan support it has long enjoyed on the Hill, just as Democrats could be losing their hold on the Indian-American constituency. Indian-Americans vote overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats, but by some accounts that vote share slipped from 84 per cent for Obama in 2012 to just over 80 per cent for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Anecdotal accounts suggest that more Indians could be moving away from the Democratic Party to the GOP, partly on account of growing wealth and partly due to ideological affiliations that sees a kinship between Prime Minister Modi and President Trump. On Friday, President Trump tweeted a photo of himself – aimed at voters- with the caption “In reality they are not after me, they are after you. I am just in the way.” The Modi campaign is said to have used a similar poster with the same caption in the 2019 elections.Still, New Delhi’s stand purely in terms of protocol has broad support from Indians, many of whom see lawmakers such as Jayapal and Ilhan Omar pandering to radicals and extremists, while they see it as concern for human rights and civil liberties. “MEA represents the collective will of 1.3 billion Indians abroad. Our foreign policy must remain uncompromisingly nonpartisan. However, MEA & GOI are not punching bags for foreign legislators attempting to appease their anti-India constituents,” tweeted Milind Deora, former Congress MP from South Mumbai.