All Opposition leaders excluded from the gala dinner hosted by President Murmu at Bharat Mandapam; Rahul Gandhi slams Centre

All Cabinet and state ministers, all Chief Ministers, as well as secretaries in the Government of India, have been invited to the dinner. Former Prime Ministers Dr. Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda were also included in the invitation list, although Deve Gowda said that he would not be attending the event due to health conditions.

New Delhi/Brussels: Days after a change in the dinner invitation format by the President House raised a political storm, Opposition parties on Friday reiterated that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party does not believe either in democracy or in the Opposition after none of the Opposition leaders received any invitation for the gala dinner to be attended by world leaders at Paragti Maidan on Saturday.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is in Brussels, said that the Congress party chief and the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has not been invited to the G20 gala dinner, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said here on Friday and accused the government that it doesn't value the leaders of 60 per cent of India's population.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) D Raja told ETV Bharat, “We did not receive any invitation”. He said that the Centre does not believe in democracy so they don’t talk about the Opposition.

Echoing the same view, former MP and Communist Party of India (CPI-Marxist) leader Hannan Mollah said that the present Centre is ruling the country in an autocratic way.

“For BJP there should not be any Opposition. That is why they are going ahead with the formula of One Nation One Election,” said Mollah.

Recently, the President's G20 dinner has been in the eye of a political storm after invitations to the event referred to President Droupadi Murmu as the ‘President of Bharat’ instead of the customary ‘President of India’. The move has been met with strong criticism from the Opposition parties, who have accused the government of attempting to change the country’s name to Bharat.

Sources said that all Cabinet and state ministers, all Chief Ministers, as well as secretaries in the Government of India have been invited to the dinner. Former Prime Ministers Dr Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda were also included in the invitation list, although Deve Gowda said that he would not be attending the event due to health conditions.

However, there was no confirmation from former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has also been ailing for a long time. Amongst the Chief Ministers, Nitish Kumar from Bihar, Hemant Soren from Jharkhand, Mamata Banerjee from West Bengal, MK Stalin from Tamil Nadu, Arvind Kejriwal from Delhi, and Bhagwant Mann from Punjab among others have already confirmed their participation. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is also reaching Delhi on Friday night to attend the gala dinner.

Sources further said that all the invited guests have been asked to reach the Parliament House on Saturday by six in the evening from where they will be taken to Bharat Mandapam at Pragati Maidan by a special transport arrangement and back.

However, senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Bhubaneswar Kalita sidelined such criticism made by the Opposition leaders.

“There are some criteria in inviting for the gala dinner to be hosted by President Droupadi Murmu. In fact, BJP MPs are also not invited to the programme which will be attended by world leaders. This is a global event, and it is unnecessary on the part of the opposition parties to politicize the matter,” said Kalita.

He said that Union Ministers have been assigned with the duty to welcome the foreign leaders at the airport. “Very strict criteria have been followed while sending invitation leaders for the programme,” Kalita claimed.