The Hindu : No written rules on receiving PM in State capitals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 26, 2003

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National

No written rules on receiving PM in State capitals

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 25. Should the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, have been at the airport to receive the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, when he arrived in Mumbai for the BJP's `chintan baithak'? Reports suggest that the Prime Minister thought so. He even brought up the matter with Mr. Shinde in a telephone conversation many days later.

According to senior civil servants, there are no written rules determining how the Prime Minister is received in a State capital. However, there is the convention — the official line-up to receive the Prime Minister must include the Governor and the Chief Minister, the city mayor, the State Chief Secretary, the Director-General of Police and the senior most officers of the services.

The convention governing the receiving of and seeing off the Prime Minister in State capitals does not differentiate between official and non-official visits. So the convention dictated that Mr. Shinde should have been there. According to the unwritten rules of Indian political etiquette, a Chief Minister who cannot be present to receive the Prime Minister must write to him prior to his visit and have his deputy stand in for him.

The former Prime Minister, I.K. Gujral, said this was perfectly in order. Receiving the Prime Minister in a State capital — whether he is on an official visit or a private visit — is a "convention built over 50 years". "Our republic is managed on the basis of certain courtesies," he said and these were especially important where different parties held power in the Centre and in the States.

But the convention has been cast aside on more than one occasion. When he was the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Kalyan Singh, made something of a habit of not receiving Prime Ministers, including Mr. Vajpayee, in Lucknow. The former West Bengal Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, too disregarded the convention from time-to-time. But, Mr. Shinde said he intended no slight to the Prime Minister by his absence. He was away from the city on party work.

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