Congress upset after Congress president Rahul Gandhi assigned sixth-row seat at R-Day parade

Republic Day 2018: Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said the Modi government’s “cheap politics” was in display when it broke tradition and denied Rahul a front-row seat. Congress sources said the party presidents had always been seated in the front row at the Republic Day Parade.

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Republic Day 2018: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress president Rahul Gandhi along with others at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 26, 2018. (Express photo by Renuka Puri)

Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s designated seat for the Republic Day Parade in the sixth row has prompted an angry reaction from his party that accused the government of setting aside tradition and indulging in “cheap politics”. Rahul was seated near Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said the Modi government’s “cheap politics” was in display when it broke tradition and denied Rahul a front-row seat. Congress sources said the party presidents had always been seated in the front row at the Republic Day Parade.

ALSO READ | Congress still believes in aristocracy, not in democracy: BJP on Rahul Gandhi’s sixth row seat at R-Day parade

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“The Modi government’s cheap politics is for all to see. The Congress president was deliberately made to sit in the sixth row, after initially assigning him a fourth-row seat, at the Republic Day celebrations by the arrogant rulers, who set aside all past traditions. For us the celebration of the Constitution is foremost,” Surjewala tweeted in Hindi.

BJP national spokesman Anil Baluni countered the Congress in a statement. “The controversy raised by Congress about the seating arrangements for Rahul Gandhi during 2018 Republic Day function is baseless and condemnable,” he said. “BJP did not make an issue of the seating arrangements made for BJP president Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh during UPA regime in 2013 and 2014. Both did not even get a place in the VIP enclosure and were made to sit with bureaucrats,” Baluni said.

Congress leaders had on Thursday alleged that assigning a seat in the fourth row to the Congress chief was an attempt to “humiliate” him at a public event.

(With PTI inputs)

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