KCR skips receiving PM Modi for the third time

hyderabad: A political blame game emerged after Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao refused to receive Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday upon his arrival at Hyderabad's Begumpet airport for the third time in six months.

KCR had earlier remained absent during the PM's visit to Hyderabad in February, whereas in May he had flown to Bengaluru when PM Modi visited the state. However, the chief minister received Opposition's joint presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha at the airport on the same day, just a couple of hours before PM Modi landed. While referring to this, Union Minister and senior BJP leader Smriti Irani said, " It is very unfortunate! Telangana CM KCR just not insulted an individual but also an institution. He jeopardised the integrity of the constitution. Politics may be a circus for KCR's party, but for BJP workers it is a medium for social emancipation and nation-building."

While the KCR's Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party leaders claimed that protocol requires only one state representative to extend an invitation to the PM. The state's animal husbandry and fisheries minister T Srinivas Yadav, who received PM Modi from the airport, later asserted, "Why should the CM himself receive him? As per the protocol, a state representative is supposed to go and give an invitation. So, I went there to receive him as a minister."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a two-day visit to Hyderabad to attend BJP's National Executive meeting, on July 2 and 3.