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Author: Virendra Kapoor
Publication: Afternoon Despatch & Courier
Date: October 17, 2005
URL: http://www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=editorials&xfile=October2005_insidestory_standard126&child=insidestory
Introduction: At their recent conclave of party chief ministers in Chandigarh, Congress leaders high and low spared no effort to ingratiate themselves with Sonia Gandhi..
Everyone in the Congress party knows full well that Manmohan Singh holds the office of the prime minister at the pleasure of the supreme leader, Sonia Gandhi, but that should be no reason for party leaders to show the PM little or no respect. Consider the latest slight to the office of the prime minister of India.
At their recent conclave of party chief ministers in Chandigarh, Congress leaders high and low spared no effort to ingratiate themselves with Sonia Gandhi. Led by the Chief Ministers of Haryana and Punjab and almost all of their cabinet colleagues, a huge crowd of senior party leaders lined up at the airport to receive her.
But most surprisingly neither the chief minister of Haryana nor that of Punjab cared to show up when the prime minister landed at the Chandigarh airport a few hours later to attend the same conference. This when the duly written down protocol prescribes that the CM of the State the PM is visiting ought to be personally present to receive him on his arrival. Mercifully, as per the same protocol the Governors of both the States headed the reception line at the Chandigarh airport when the PM alighted from the special aircraft.
A section of the local media noted this slight to the PM. When questioned about their failure to receive Manmohan Singh on his arrival, Haryana's Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Punjab's Captain Amrinder Singh separately cited their preoccupation in ensuring glitch-free arrangements for the CMs' conference. The truth, however, is that once Sonia Gandhi was in town they were unwilling to move away from her side lest their rivals try and poison her ears against them.
As for the protocol demands for upholding the institutional dignity of the PM's office, it could be dispensed with since the man occupying it was widely considered a cipher and treated as such by most Congress leaders since he was in no position to favour or harm them in any manner without the express sanction from the big boss at 10 Janpath.
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