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President finds dead man among guests for banquet

George Iype in New Delhi

If the external affairs ministry had its way, even a dead man would have supped with President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan at the ceremonial banquet that President K R Narayanan will host in his honour at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday.

Two days before General Musharraf is all set to land in New Delhi, the ministry finds itself in a very embarrassing position, thanks to the careless guest list it sent to the President's office.

Included in the list was Professor Ravinder Kumar, a prominent historian who died a few months ago.

That is not all. It seems the ministry did not want Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and heads of many important political parties to attend the banquet as their names were left out of its list.

Instead, the list included some have-been politicians like C K Jaffer Sharief, Eduardo Faleiro, E Ahmed and Raj Babbar.

It also included a set of what the ministry called 'prominent persons' -- Professor P K Dave, director of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, Professor R S Sirohi, director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and Professor Deepak Nayyar, vice-chancellor of Delhi University.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi was the only head of a political party to figure in the list. Even former high commissioners in Pakistan like J N Dixit and G Parthasarathy were conspicuous by their absence.

External affairs ministry officials said Narayanan was so upset with the list that he has rejected most of the names.

Instead, the President, who himself was India's foreign secretary many years ago, has drawn up his own carefully balanced list.

A senior external affairs ministry official, who got a thorough dressing down from Rashtrapati Bhavan over the banquet list, admitted to rediff.com that "the list has turned out to be an embarrassment for the foreign secretary [Chokila Iyer]".

"It shows how confused the MEA is on the eve of the Indo-Pak summit," he commented.

"The list was prepared by the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan division of the MEA," the officer revealed. "Foreign Secretary Iyer scanned the names, approved them and sent them to the President. I really do not know how we failed to notice that even a dead man was included."

Sources in the ministry said Iyer has now sought an explanation for the goof-up from the IPA division.

The President's banquet will be one of the most important functions in New Delhi in honour of General Musharraf. As such, Narayanan wanted the number of invitees to be less than 100 to ensure that the event becomes a good curtain-raiser for the Agra summit.

So, in the President's new list, the heads of all major political parties have been included. The President is also keen to have the chief ministers of Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab present at the event.

He has also included some experts on Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations. Thus former high commissioner Dixit is also expected to get an invitation.

The ministry had suggested four names from art and culture -- M F Husain, Dilip Kumar, Anjolie Ela Menon and Shyam Benegal -- but it is not certain whether the President will approve of them or add other names. What is certain, however, is that the heads and directors of educational and medical institutions have been dropped.

The President's office is yet to get the names of the members of the Pakistani delegation who will accompany Gen Musharraf to the banquet. "We have been told that the Pakistani guest list will include less than 10 people," an official said.

Apart from Vajpayee, only four Union ministers -- Lal Kishenchand Advani, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Murli Manohar Joshi -- and Minister of State for External Affairs U V Krishnan Raju will attend the banquet.

A team of top Indian officials led by National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, who is also principal secretary to the prime minister, will also be present. They will include Cabinet Secretary T R Prasad, Foreign Secretary Iyer, India's High Commissioner in Pakistan Vijay K Nambiar and Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, principal scientific adviser to the Government of India.

Indo-Pak Summit 2001: The Complete Coverage

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