Two days after she ranted about not being invited to the swearing-in ceremony of A P J Abdul Kalam, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani called up Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa to express his regret over the incident.Advani, according to a press release circulated by the Tamil Nadu Government, assured her that he would review the entire Table of Precedence for formal Government functions. Jayalalithaa thanked Advani in turn, saying it was ‘‘gracious’’ of him to have personally conveyed his regret.Jayalalithaa had issued a four-page note the day after the swearing-in, saying she had been eager to attend the ceremony but was told by Home Ministry officials that chief ministers were not going to be invited. Pointing to the presence of other CMs like Chandrababu Naidu at the function, Jayalalithaa said this was a ‘‘deliberate slight’’ to the people of Tamil Nadu.After the row was resolved, MDMK treasurer and Union Minister of State for non-conventional Resources M. Kannappan suggested that the Centre could adopt a system of extending invitations to all Chief Ministers for the swearing-in ceremony of President.This time the Centre has clarified the issue but in future the Centre should draw up a plan to invite states on all such national occasions, he said in Delhi.Former Union minister Vazhapadi Ramamurthy also suggested that the Prime Minister should convene a meeting of the National Integration Council (NIC) or a conference of chief ministers to sort out such ‘‘minor issues’’.
