After India summoned an American diplomat over their remarks on the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the liquor policy case, the US reiterated on Wednesday its call for “fair, transparent, timely legal processes”.

We continue to follow these actions closely, including the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, said US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller while responding to questions on India summoning Gloria Berbena, the US Acting Deputy Chief of Mission in New Delhi.

The meeting at the foreign ministry’s South Block office lasted nearly 40 minutes yesterday with India objecting strongly to the US remarks on the arrest of Mr Kejriwal.

Miller also responded to a question on the Congress party’s frozen bank accounts, saying, “We are also aware of the Congress party’s allegations that tax authorities have frozen some of their bank accounts in a manner that will make it challenging to effectively campaign in the upcoming elections.”

He said the US encourages “fair, transparent and timely legal processes” for each of these issues.

“With respect to your first question, I’m not going to talk about any private diplomatic conversations, but of course, what we have said publicly is what I just said from here, that we encourage fair, transparent, timely legal processes. We don’t think anyone should object to that,” he said.

Mr Kejriwal was arrested last week by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), making him the third Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader to be taken into custody in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam.

The US State Department on Tuesday said it is monitoring reports of Mr Kejriwal’s arrest and called on New Delhi to ensure “a fair and timely legal process” for the jailed Chief Minister.

India objected to it and warned of “unhealthy precedents”.

“States are expected to be respectful of the sovereignty and internal affairs of others, and this responsibility is even more so in case of fellow democracies. It could otherwise end up setting unhealthy precedents,” the foreign ministry said.

“India’s legal processes are based on an independent judiciary which is committed to objective and timely outcomes. Casting aspersions on that is unwarranted,” the ministry stressed.

The US remarks came days after Germany’s Foreign Office stressed that Mr Kejriwal is entitled to a fair and impartial trial. The Indian government had reacted strongly and summoned the German envoy, labelling their remark “blatant interference in internal matters”.

The excise policy was introduced to bring an overhaul to the liquor business in Delhi, but was scrapped after Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena ordered a probe into the alleged irregularities in the policy. The ED believes the bribe money from the policy was allegedly used for funding the AAP’s election campaigns. It has also called Mr Kejriwal a “conspirator” in the case.

His arrest just ahead of the 2024 2024 Lok Sabha election has also prompted furious protests from the opposition camp.

The Congress today dropped Supriya Shrinate as a candidate from the constituency she contested in 2019, amid roaring outrage over her remarks on actor Kangana Ranaut, the BJP’s pick from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi.

Ms Shrinate had contested the last Lok Sabha polls from Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh but lost to BJP’s Pankaj Chaudhary.

This time, Congress has named Virendra Chaudhary as its choice from the seat, dropping Ms Shrinate, caught in a massive political whirlpool over her post on Kangana Ranaut.

On Monday, an offensive post was put out from Ms Shrinate’s Instagram account with a picture of Ms Ranaut and a derogatory caption. Ms Shrinate promptly clarified that several people have access to her social media accounts, and one of them made the inappropriate post.

“As soon as I came to know, I deleted that post. Everyone who knows me, also knows very well that I can never make personal and indecent comments towards any woman. I wanted to know how this happened,” she said.

Earlier in the day, the Election Commission issued a show-cause notice to Ms Shrinate over her post.

The Congress announced its eighth list on Wednesday for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, naming 14 candidates for four states – Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, and Jharkhand. The party has announced 208 candidates so far.

The party has fielded Rao Yadvendra Singh against Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna and Pratap Bhanu Sharma against former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Vidisha. Tarvar Singh Lodhi has been nominated from Damoh.

In Jharkhand, it named Kalicharan Munda from the Khunti (ST), Sukhdeo Bhagat from Lohardaga (ST), and Jaiprakashbhai Patel from the Hazaribagh parliamentary constituencies.

In Telangana, the party fielded Suguna Kumari Chelimala from Adilabad, Tatiparthi Jeevan Reddy from Nizamabad, Neelam Madhu from Medak, and Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy from Bhongir.

In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress nominated Dolly Sharma from Ghaziabad, Nakul Dubey from Sitapur, Shivram Valmiki from Bulandshahr (SC) seat, and Virendra Chaudhary from Maharajganj.

The bodies of two construction workers were found in the cold waters of Baltimore harbor Wednesday, trapped in their red pick-up truck after a giant cargo ship slammed into the bridge they had been filling potholes on, causing a thunderous collapse.

Maryland police announced the grim discovery at a press conference, adding that sonar shows what they believe are more vehicles trapped within the concrete and twisted steel debris of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Six of the eight-man construction crew are believed to have been killed, with four bodies yet to be found.

Warning that it was not safe for divers to try to penetrate the wreckage, police told a press conference that they were shifting to a salvage operation, removing the superstructure and then sending divers back in to recover the rest of the bodies.

“Based on sonar scans, we firmly believe that the vehicles are encased in the superstructure and concrete that we tragically saw come down,” Colonel Roland Butler, the superintendent of Maryland’s state police, told a press conference.

The container ship Dali, about 1,000 feet (300 meters) long, and piled high with cargo, was leaving the busy port at 1:30 am Tuesday en route to Asia when power failed and the vessel crashed straight into a support column.

Nearly the entire steel structure — crossed by tens of thousands of motorists each day — collapsed within seconds, cascading over the bow of the ship, blocking one of the busiest US trading ports.

The ship issued a Mayday call in the moments before the collision, prompting police to rush to stop traffic on the bridge — likely saving lives.

But there was no chance to evacuate the eight workers filling potholes on the road directly above the oncoming ship.

Butler named the two victims found Wednesday as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, a 35-year-old who had lived in Baltimore but was originally from Mexico, and his 26-year-old colleague Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, who lived in the suburb of Dundalk but came from Guatemala.

They were found in 25 feet of water, he said.

Two others were pulled from the water alive in the moments after the collapse early Tuesday. One was uninjured, while the second was released from hospital Wednesday, Butler said.

Four more workers are presumed dead, vanished into the swirling currents and crumpled tangle of wrecked girders and pylons.

– ‘Hard-working’ men –

The vessel, which remained entangled in the debris Wednesday, was “stable,” Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier told reporters at the White House, adding that the mostly Indian crew remained on board and were “very much engaged” in the investigation.

The National Transportation Safety Board, a federal authority, said that the ship’s data record, or black box, had been recovered so that investigators can understand what went wrong.

Gautier insisted the ship did not present an environmental danger, despite the billion and a half gallons of oil and few dozen hazardous material cargo containers on board. Two other containers — of the total 4,700 — were lost overboard, he said.

Officials said the missing workers were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

“They are all hard-working, humble men,” said Jesus Campos, a colleague of the eight workers, all employed by contractor Brawner Builders.

One of those now presumed dead was father-of-three Miguel Luna, according to the nonprofit Casa, which serves immigrant communities.

Luna, from El Salvador, had left for work at 6:30 pm on Monday and never returned, Casa said.  

His wife, Maria del Carmen Castellon, told Telemundo 44 that she was “devastated” by the wait for any information.

“My heart hurts with this situation,” said Campos.

–  Busy harbor blocked  –

Footage of the collision showed the vessel slamming into one of the 47-year-old bridge’s supports.

The ship had passed two overseas inspections in 2023, the maritime authority for Singapore, where the ship is flagged, said Wednesday, adding that a fault monitor gauge was fixed in June.

The Port of Baltimore is the ninth-busiest major US port in terms of both foreign cargo handled and foreign cargo value, and is directly responsible for more than 15,000 jobs, supporting almost 140,000 more.

The effect on supply chains “clearly will not be trivial,” US Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said, adding it was “too soon” to know when the port might reopen.

“Rebuilding will not be quick, or easy, or cheap,” he cautioned.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)