Meets Delhi over dinner at 7 RCR

Over kakori kababs and dal dampukht at a private dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Over kakori kababs and dal dampukht at a private dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his official residence here tonight,Barack Obama,after striking the right chord with India Inc in Mumbai,had his first brush with the New Delhi political establishment.

Emerging from a 45-minute one-on-one with Singh as against the scheduled time of 30 minutes Obama,accompanied by Michelle,reached out to invitees with friendly,witty remarks as Singh introduced them to Cabinet colleagues,MPs and personalities from different fields.

Obama told Mumbai North-Central MP Priya Dutt,You are too young to be an MP because you dont have grey hair. When she said her hair was also turning grey,he said,Not as much as mine.

Shiromani Akali Dal leader and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal told the US President that Punjab was looking forward to his visit. Obama said he too had been looking forward to it but would not be able to make it due to paucity of time. May be next time, he said. His visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar was called off in the wake of a row over headgear.

DMK MP Kanimozhi congratulated him on what you are doing on health. To this,Obama said it is very important,we have to work on it. Michelle joined them,saying it is nice to see women in politics.

I have seen your car Nano, Obama told Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata.

At the dinner,there were no speeches. The camel-mounted BSF band played in the background while the guests chatted with each other.

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At the high table were the Obamas,Manmohan Singh and wife Gursharan Kaur,Sonia Gandhi,Rahul Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee.

Senior Ministers,including Home Minister P Chidambaram,Defence Minister A K Antony,Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar,External Affairs Minister S M Krishna,Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal,Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed,and Science amp; Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan were seated at separate tables which had been named after prominent Americans with India links like John Kenneth Galbraith and Robert McNamara.

BJP leaders LK Advani and Arun Jaitley attended the dinner but Left leaders were absent. Also present were Timothy J Roemer,Sam Pitroda,Montek Singh Ahluwalia,Azim Premji,Swati Piramal,N R Narayanamurthy,Aamir Khan,Shabana Azmi,Javed Akhtar,and Viswanathan Anand,among others.

Obama heard with rapt attention as the Navy and BSF bands played Mahatma Gandhis favourite bhajan Vaishnav jan to tene kahiye. This was followed by the all-time hit from Waqt O meri zohra jabeen,tujhe maloom nahin.

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Young MPs seemed to have been bowled over by the US President. Unlike a politician,he is very unassuming. I had met Bill Clinton also but he Obama is better on people-to-people basis, said Harsimrat Kaur. Very warm, said Kanimozhi.