G20 dinner: Who has been invited? Has Congress' Kharge been left out?

A spruced-up Delhi is waiting to host the leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) bloc this weekend. Many heads of state, including United States president Joe Biden, will start landing in the National Capital from today (8 September) for the G20 Summit. Some have already arrived. A dinner party will be organised on Saturday (9 September) at Pragati Maidan’s Bharat Mandapam for the foreign guests, which include leaders and delegates of the G20 grouping, comprising 19 nations and the European Union. India has also invited special invitees to the summit, including Bangladesh and Spain. Besides the foreign dignitaries, President Droupadi Murmu has also called upon Union ministers, chief ministers and state ministers, and other special guests to attend the dinner party. Let’s take a look at the guest list for the G20 dinner. Former PMs, Cabinet ministers and more Former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda are invited to the G20 dinner. However, Singh is unlikely to attend because of ill health, his office told Times of India (TOI). Gowda has also excused himself from the dinner citing health issues.

The G20 dinner guest list also includes all Union Cabinet and state ministers, chief ministers, secretaries to the Indian government. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already confirmed that she will attend the dinner hosted by President Murmu. Earlier this week, she criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre for trying to “distort the country’s history” over the G20 dinner invite row. She had also questioned the need to “suddenly use only Bharat” in the official invite, which referred to Murmu as ‘President of Bharat’. Besides Banerjee, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab’s Bhagwant Mann and Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin will also mark their presence at the dinner, as per an NDTV report. [caption id=“attachment_13098322” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar have been invited to the G20 dinner. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is not on the guest list. PTI File Photo[/caption] According to TOI, Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and his Karnataka counterpart Siddaramaiah may skip the dinner party due to pre-scheduled events in their respective states. As per a Reuters news agency report on 6 September, as many as 500 business leaders were invited to the G20 dinner, including industrialist Mukesh Ambani, Adani Group’s Gautam Adani, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Aditya Birla Group Kumar Mangalam Birla and Bharti Airtel founder-chairman Sunil Mittal. “This dinner … will host various state heads and makes for an opportunity to gather India’s Who’s Who during the leaders’ summit,” an Indian official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity. However, a Press Information Bureau (PIB) fact check on Friday termed the news agency’s report as “misleading” and claimed that “no business leaders have been invited to the dinner”.

Who has been snubbed?  As per NDTV sources, leaders of political parties have not been invited. One of the notable names who is not on the guest list is Congress president and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, who holds the rank of Cabinet minister. According to the TOI report, Opposition sources have objected to Kharge’s exclusion from the guest list as he represents the Opposition grouping in Rajya Sabha, and also because the G20 dinner is being hosted by the President, not the Centre. Other presidents of Opposition parties, along with floor leaders in Parliament, have told TOI they have not been invited. What to know about the G20 dinner Special vehicles have been arranged to take the invited guests to Bharat Mandapam, the G20 Summit venue. As per NDTV, the Delhi Police has chalked out plans to take all Cabinet ministers, ministers of state, and other guests from their residence to Parliament House. This has been done in view of the movement of foreign dignitaries and traffic restrictions in place in the National Capital. The G20 dinner will be held at the multi-function hall of Bharat Mandapam. A short cultural programme will also be organised on Saturday, Muktesh Pardeshi, a special secretary (operations) of the G20, told the news channel. Which G20 leaders are coming? US’ Joe Biden will be reaching Delhi in the evening today. British prime minister Rishi Sunak, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida are among other leaders attending the two-day conclave. Russian president Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping will be skipping the gathering. Pedro Sánchez, the president of Spain – who was a special invitee – will be giving the G20 summit a miss as he has tested positive for COVID-19. Leaders of Bangladesh, Egypt, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Singapore, Spain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman are also among the special invitees. As per Indian Express, the West Bengal chief minister is likely to meet Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina on the sidelines of the event. Azali Assoumani, the Union of Comoros president and chairperson of the African Union (AU), Mauritius prime minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth and his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni and Bangladesh’s Hasina have already arrived in Delhi for the G20 Summit. According to NDTV, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host a working lunch for all G20 leaders on Saturday. With inputs from agencies