EaseMyTrip's Nishant Pitti responds to allegations of 'instigating' India-Maldives row

As the tensions between India and Maldives continue to remain high, travel and tourism platform EaseMyTrip responded to some of the accusations of "instigating" the diplomatic row between the two countries by suspending the flights.

EaseMyTrip CEO Nishant Pitti defended the decision of his company to suspend flight bookings to the island nation amid the India-Maldives row, claiming that some people on social media accused his company of taking a political stance.

Nishant further said some X users were accusing his travel company of "instigating" the tensions between India and Maldives. Backing his company's stance, Nishant said he would have done the same even if some other government was in power in India.

"Read some tweets, saying we instigated India-Maldives Standoff. Here is a brief history: Nov 2023, President of Maldives won election on plank of "India Out" campaign. They wanted India & its tourist OUT, since last few years. Being 2nd largest tourism provider to Maldives, we merely fecilitated what majority Maldivan asked for. This new Maldivian govt has been clearly pro-China, and it's only fair that they earn money from Chinese tourist rather than Indians now," the EaseMyTrip CEO wrote on X.

He added, "Remaining 5% folks seem aggravated, as they are seeing it politically, and probably it's not matching with their political ideology. Perhaps, we would have done the same, no matter which govt was ruling in India, as it just made sense to uphold the dignity of our country."

Maldives asks India to withdraw troops

As the tensions between the two countries escalated, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu recently asked India to withdraw its troops the Indian Ocean archipelago by March 15. Muizzu said that all Indian military personnel should be called back by this deadline, while New Delhi said that more discussions in this regard will be held for a resolutions.

"Indian military personnel cannot stay in the Maldives. This is the policy of President Mohamed Muizzu and that of this administration," Abdulla Nazim Ibrahim, principal secretary to the Maldivian president, said during a media briefing.

These developments were reported weeks after three Maldivian ministers were suspended by the government for insulting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on social media, when he posted photos of his visit to Lakshadweep.