New Delhi, Jan 8 (PTI) Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday said the Election Commission has an excellent track record of conducting free, fair, independent and impartial elections.

Birla made the remark during a meeting with Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the UK.

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The Lok Sabha Speaker is on a tour of the UK, including Scotland, to visit their respective parliaments and presiding officers and Guernsey to chair a meeting of presiding officers from Commonwealth nations.

During his interaction with Hoyle, Birla said India is a vibrant democracy with nearly one billion voters.

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Highlighting the government's efforts to encourage the participation of women in elections, he noted that it shows the inclusiveness in the country's electoral process.

Birla emphasised that despite the diversities, India has been successful in fulfilling the hopes and aspirations of different sections of society through parliamentary dialogues and discussion.

Birla also met Pat McFadden, Minister for Intergovernmental Relations of the United Kingdom.

"We had discussions ranging from free trade and exchange, better people-to-people contact and strong economic ties to information technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and creativity," Birla said in a post on X.

He said he thanked McFadden for his appreciation of India's robust growth under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi

"Our historic relations have evolved into a robust, multifaceted and mutually beneficial partnership covering multiple sectors including defence, health, education and climate change," he said.

Birla said the resilience of the India-UK relations was evident in the cooperation during the Covid pandemic including in the development of vaccines.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)