In an unprecedented situation, President Kovind only returning from tour today while VP Naidu is in Chicago for RSS event.
New Delhi: For the first time in recent history, the president of India and the vice-president are out of the country at the same time. The ministry of external affairs (MEA), which is in charge of scheduling and protocol of VVIP visits, seems to have got its diplomatic calendar awry.
Having both the president and the VP out of the country at the same time is a big no-no. One or the other must be in town, just in case of an emergency.
For example, when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984, precipitating a national crisis, President Giani Zail Singh was on a visit to the Middle East.
He had to rush back to Delhi but Vice-President R. Venkataraman was around to hold the ship of state steady.
President to return today, VP in Chicago
It isn’t clear if the MEA has slipped up on propriety, scheduling or was simply told at a much later time about Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu’s visit to the second edition of the World Hindu Congress, at the same time that President Ram Nath Kovind is abroad.
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President Kovind is returning Sunday evening after a week-long tour to three Central Asian countries, apart from Cyprus, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.
The Vice-President will address the World Hindu Congress (WHC) on September 9, which is the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s speech in Chicago. Naidu will also address other meetings in Chicago, including a meeting of 14 Telugu associations in Chicago — the vice-president is a native of Andhra Pradesh and Telugu is his mother tongue.
The vice-president left India on Friday, September 7.
The itinerary of the two was such that for three whole days, between 7 September and 9 September, neither the President nor the Vice-President was in India.
Old-timers in the MEA point out another aberration in protocol — the fact that Naidu is travelling abroad and has not been invited by the vice-president of that country, in this case, Mike Pence of the US.
It is, however, not clear whether this is a personal visit by Vice-President Naidu.
Also read: Ministry of external affairs mulls extending leave travel privilege to Central Asia
It is not known whether the MEA was asked by the BJP or the RSS to push for such an invite or not. But the merger of government with the BJP and further, the RSS, has raised eyebrows in the protocol-heavy MEA.
Surprisingly VP was in tears when he disconnected himself from BJP RSS etc. How can non partisan VP holding constitutional Post can attend RSS meet in the name of World Hindu Congress. Any way government would blame Nehruji for this goof up with a claim that why did he introduced such convention.
An Air India 747 suggests this was not a personal visit.