Upset over not being invited to the inauguration of the Lucknow Mahotsav in a proper manner by the district authorities, city Mayor Dinesh Sharma said he will boycott the festival.

Lucknow Mahotsav is a 10-day festival organised to showcase culture and etiquette in the City of Nawabs.

“I have sent a letter to the district magistrate stating that despite being the first citizen of the city, I was not invited properly to the inaugural ceremony of the Mahotsav,” Sharma had stated in his letter to the authorities.

Chief Minister Mayawati had inaugurated the Mahotsav on Wednesday night in the Ashiyana area. But Sharma did not receive any invitation for the inaugural ceremony till 5 pm.

“An hour before the Mahotsav was inaugurated, a peon reached my residence and handed over the invitation to a guard deployed at the gate,” he said. “The administration should have maintained some dignity of the post. It is an insult of a constitutional post,” he added.

Sharma said that as per tradition and protocol, either the district magistrate or an officer of additional district magistrate rank comes to invite the mayor. “Lucknow Mahotsav has turned into a festival of officers rather being a festival of people,” he alleged. Sharma lamented that a similar incident had taken place last year as well, but at that time the district magistrate had apologised personally.

“I have no complaints whether they invite me as a person, but the officers should maintain the protocol of the post. I don’t think Mayawati will not invite the mayor. It is the bureaucrats, who in an attempt to appease the chief minister did so,” he alleged.