Left, BJP skip Patil’s ‘at home’

New Delhi, August 15 : The President’s reception on the occasion of the 61st Independence Day was marked by less than the expected attendance and discussions over the Kashmir imbroglio. The thin attendance was not only due to the fact that the UPA’s friends-turned-foes — the Left parties — were conspicuous by their absence but also because the Opposition too seemed to have strategised to stay away from the high tea.

All the BJP stalwarts, including Leader of Opposition L K Advani, decided to give the event a miss. The only representatives from the party were its spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad and Delhi Mayor Arti Mehra. The Left, however, was completely out of the picture unless former CPI(M) member and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is counted in.

Also conspicuous by their absence were Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and husband of the President Devisingh Shekhawat.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Hamid Ansari were among those present during the President’s second ‘at home’ function at the sprawling Mughal Garden of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Absence of the leaders at the event also made seating arrangements in the presidential enclosure shrink further. All Union ministers, including External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, were in a separate enclosure as required by the protocol.

Reverberations of the worrying situation in J&K dominated discussions. Former NDA Law Minister Ram Jethmalani was spotted in a deep conversation with Chief Information Commissioner and New Delhi’s expert hand on Kashmir Wajahat Habibullah.

While Shivraj Patil, Lalu Prasad, Defence Minister A K Antony and MoS for Steel Jitin Prasada kept to themselves, PMO MoS Prithviraj Chavan and Minister for Food Processing Subodh Kant Sahay chose to mix with the guests. Among the young parliamentarians only Naveen Jindal and Prasada were seen.

The changed equations between the Left, the Congress and the Speaker were all too evident. As the gathering dispersed, the Speaker was seen walking out of Rashtrapati Bhavan with the Congress president.

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.

Mail this page