Kejriwal yet to receive political clearance for C40 Copenhagen summit

New Delhi [India], Sept 29 (ANI): Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has not received political clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to visit and speak at the C40 summit in Denmark's Copenhagen.

The summit, at which Kejriwal is slated to speak on his government's work towards lowering pollution, including the car rationing scheme, will take place between October 9 and 12.

Any politician, minister or chief minister in the country has to take political clearance from the MEA to talk about the country's vision or government policies at any forum in a foreign country.

Sources privy to the development said that Kejriwal had applied for the clearance a long ago but it is still under process.

Recently, Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had faced similar issues to get political clearance for his visit to Russia.

He had tweeted, "I was invited to speak about Delhi Education reforms at the World Education Conference, Moscow. I was supposed to leave tonight but it's unfortunate that Govt of India has not given permission. It's pending 'under process' for the last 10 days."

Last year, MEA had declined to accord permission to Delhi government health minister Satyendra Jain to visit Australia on an invitation from University of Melbourne and George Institute in Sydney.

Kejriwal is expected to lead a delegation to attend the Copenhagen meet next month.

"Chief Minister Kejriwal will present Delhi pollution success story during C40 Climate Summit in Copenhagen. He will present Odd-Even, and other solutions that worked for Delhi's ongoing fight against air pollution," the Delhi government said in an official statement.

The Chief Minister will join the leaders of the cities like New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles and Berlin on the high table of urban powerhouses to deliberate on the climate crisis impacting the world.