Who sat where: The other pecking order

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 27 Mei 2014 | 22.14

NEW DELHI: In status and hierarchy-obsessed Delhi, the seating order at important functions can be a source of endless speculation, glee, heartburn and wounded egos. You go to a swearing-in not so much to see as to be seen.

Event managers often spend hours, indeed days, fretting about whom to seat where. And Modi's oath-taking ceremony was a planner's nightmare from the point of view of protocol.

There were heads of state and governments, governors and chief ministers, a power-packed business contingent — including Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Gautam Adani, Kumar Mangalam Birla and Anand Mahindra — religious figures, sports and Bollywood stars.

READ ALSO: I, Narendra Modi, all the way

So, there was great interest in who'd occupy the front row. Saarc heads rubbed shoulders with Indian heavyweights — some of whom had vacated hot seats, some on their way to occupying them.President Pranab Mukherjee sat on a pedestal that had on his left Modi with his ministers.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi sat between Nepal PM Sushil Kumar Koirala and former president Pratibha Patil, accompanied by her husband. Mauritius PM Naveenchandra Ramgoolam sat beside former president A P J Abdul Kalam, who in turn was next to former PM Manmohan Singh's wife Gursharan Kaur.

READ ALSO: Women make up 25% of Narendra Modi Cabinet

All eyes were on Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif, flanked on one side by Manmohan Singh and on the other by Gursharan Kaur. Then there was Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai with India's vice-president Hamid Ansari beside him. BJP patriarch L K Advani had Maldives president Abdullah Yameen and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse for company. Bhutan PM Tshering Tobgay had former PM H D Deve Gowda as his neighbour.

Veteran BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi, who vacated the key seat of Varanasi for Modi, sat with his wife and spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar alongside. The man credited for the BJP's phenomenal showing in UP, Amit Shah, was there too in the front row, seated alongside Shiv Sena's Uddhav Thackeray. A slew of religious leaders, including Sadhvi Ritambhara, were also in the front row.

Interestingly, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav was relegated fairly far back but Amit Shah grabbed him by the hand and escorted him to the front — the bitterness of the UP campaign apparently having been forgotten, at least for one day.


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