New Delhi, Jan 26 (UNI) The Congress party slammed the BJP-led government at the Centre for not allotting front-row seats to Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge during the Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi, calling it a “breach of protocol.”
Congress lodged a protest, saying the incident did not come under the ambit of political decorum.
Gandhi and Kharge attended the Republic Day parade, but their seating arrangement triggered criticism from Congress leaders, who alleged deliberate disrespect.
Tamil Nadu Congress MP Manickam Tagore shared a 2014 photograph on social media showing senior BJP leader L.K. Advani seated in the front row, questioning the current protocol.
“Why this protocol confusion now? Do Modi and Shah want to insult Congress President Kharge and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi?” Tagore wrote.
Another Congress Rajya Sabha MP said the seating decision was “a clear violation of etiquette and parliamentary norms,” adding that such conduct reflected declining political courtesy.
The issue has surfaced earlier as well. During the last Independence Day, Gandhi did not attend the event and later faced criticism, while the Congress had also raised objections over him being seated in the last row on that occasion.
In 2018, a row broke out between Congress and BJP over Rahul Gandhi being allotted a sixth-row seat at the Republic Day parade. The opposition alleged a deliberate slight, while ruling party leaders said the protocol set by the UPA when it was in office was being followed. Rahul sat with Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, prompting Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala to call the seating arrangement “cheap politics.”
