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| Will official seating protocol be changed? | | Sonia Gandhi after all isn't an ordinary MP | | SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, AUG. 14: In a signifcant development, the Union Home Ministry has its task cut out. It officals are busy changing official seating protocol for the Independence Day celebrations.
That is because according to the present protocol, Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, should be seated in the back row as an ordinary member of Parliament (MP) on Independence Day as she is no longer the chairperson of National Advisory Council.
Sonia may not even get to stand next to the Prime Minister when Manmohan Singh unfurls the tricolour, for the government protocols clearly lay down that the UPA chairperson is now just another member of Parliament and 21st in the order of precedence as regards the seating arrangements of VIPs.
But the government is busy trying to change that. “We have written to the State governments and will get the final inputs in two or three days,'' Home Secretary, VK Duggal, said. This measure, however, will not be in time to get Sonia Gandhi a front row seat. Besides Sonia, there are other VIPs too who do not find a mention in the warrant of precedence.
They include former Vice Presidents, the chief of the Central Vigilance Commission, the RTI commissioner and the 40 odd posts created under the offices of profit also have to find a place in the protocol which was last overhauled in 1979. Hence, this gives the government enough justification to say that the warrant is not being overhauled for a single individual.
But like with everything else, the bureaucracy has found a way of seating Sonia in the front row by dubbing her as an eminent person who has contributed to public life.
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