President Abdulla Yameen suspects that Indian personnel is in Maldives to keep watch on China, says Abhijit Singh, a former Indian naval officer.

In an interview with Reuters, Singh, an expert on Indian Ocean politics at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, said that the real reason behind the President wanting the Indian helicopters out is because there are Indian personnel also present.

He highlighted that Indian helicopters were deployed near the islands where the Chinese were present.

Reuters notes that along with the helicopters, India had stationed around 50 military personnel, including pilots and maintenance crew.

"Now the issue is Yameen wants the helicopters out, but more importantly he wants the personnel out. It is not the helicopters that trouble him so much, it is actually the fact that there are these people there."

"Yameen has invited China to do a lot of infrastructure building and he suspects that India is trying to keep a watch on what the Chinese are doing and so wants to keep the Indians out," said Singh.

Reuters reported that the Maldives' ambassador in India, Ahmed Mohamed declined to comment on Singh’s statements.

However, Ambassador Ahmed told the news agency that the two military helicopters provided by India were mainly used for medical evacuations but were no longer required as the islands had built up enough resources of its own.

"They were very useful in the past but with the development of adequate infrastructure, facilities and resources we are now in a position to handle medical evacuations on our own," he said.

The news agency also stated that there is increased tension between Maldives and India after it began opposing President Yameen's crackdown on political rivals and the imposition of an emergency this year and some of the president's rivals have called on New Delhi for military intervention, creating worries in the Maldivian government.