India, May 4 -- Two members of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's party in the northwestern Sinaloa state said they would temporarily step down from their posts after the United States charged them and eight other politicians and security officers with drug trafficking in a bombshell indictment that has shaken Mexico's political establishment.

In a short video announcement at midnight Friday, Gov Ruben Rocha Moya, the highest-ranking official named in the indictment, denied accusations that he protected the Sinaloa cartel and helped it smuggle drugs into the US in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes.

"My conscience is clear," said Rocha, 76, a longtime ally of influential former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. "To my pe...