Congress angry as Rahul Gandhi had to watch R-Day parade from sixth row

January 27, 2018

New Delhi, Jan 26: Congress leaders were furious at the Modi government as party President Rahul Gandhi was made to sit in the sixth row in the VIP enclosure to watch the Republic Day parade roll down the Rajpath Friday morning.

Gandhi was seen seated next to leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad with their posse of security personnel standing in the aisle as President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and heads of state and governments from 10 Asean nations took a seat on a special podium.

However, Gandhi was given a seat in the second row at the 'At Home' function hosted by President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Gandhi and Modi were also seen greeting each other as they came face-to-face in Rashtrapati Bhawan.

At the Republic Day parade, the first row in the VIP enclosure was taken by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, BJP President Amit Shah, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Agriculture Minister Radhamohan Singh among others.

An angry Congress alleged breach of protocol and "deliberate humiliation" of Gandhi in front of world leaders.

Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said the Modi government's "cheap politics" was at display when it broke tradition and denied Gandhi a front-row seat at the parade.

"The arrogant rulers deliberately seated Congress president Rahul Gandhi in the fourth row, then sixth row, on Republic Day, discarding all convention. For us celebrating the Republic is above all," he said.

Congress leaders were also angry at the government for not arranging meetings of Gandhi with the heads of state/government of the 10 Asean nations. They recalled that the government had also prevented a meeting between Gandhi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On the eve of Republic Day, Gandhi wrote an open letter to people asking them to defend the Constitution and its treasured commitment to justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.

The Congress president said everyone must remember the Indian Constitution and the commitment it made to citizens. "On this Republic day, let us renew our lifelong pledge to protect our Constitution, the keystone of our cherished Republic, and to defend it as one people, whenever it is endangered," he said.

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‘Pakistan has no moral right to question India’s military operation’: Pak Islamist lawmaker exposes own country’s hypocrisy

News Network

December 23,2025

A Pakistani lawmaker has called out the hypocrisy of his country's leadership, drawing a parallel between Islamabad's military actions against Kabul and India's 'Operation Sindoor'.

Condemning the Pakistan army, led by Asim Munir, for strikes on Afghanistan - which resulted in civilian casualties - Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman questioned the consistency of Islamabad's logic. He argued that if Pakistan's cross-border attacks are considered justified, then the country has little ground to object when India enters Pakistani territory to eliminate terrorists.

Rehman was addressing the 'Majlis-e-Ittehad-e-Ummat' conference on Monday in Karachi's Lyari. The town recently gained international attention as the setting for the Ranveer Singh-starrer Dhurandhar, which depicted the intersection of informants and operatives within the Lyari underworld.

"If you say that we attacked our enemy in Afghanistan and justify this, then India can also say that it attacked Bahawalpur, Muridke, and the headquarters of groups responsible for the attack in Kashmir," Rehman said, referring to India's retaliatory strikes. "Then how can you raise objections? The same accusations are now being levelled against Pakistan by Afghanistan. How do you justify both positions?"

The JUI-F chief's remarks specifically referenced 'Operation Sindoor'.

On May 7, Indian armed forces carried out pre-dawn missile strikes on nine terror targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, including the Jaish-e-Mohammad stronghold of Bahawalpur and Lashkar-e-Taiba's base in Muridke.

Pak-Afghanistan Tension

Fazlur Rehman has been a consistent critic of the Pakistani government's policy towards Afghanistan. In October, during a peak in bilateral tensions, he offered to mediate between the two nations. According to a Dawn report, he stated, "In the past, I have played a role in reducing tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I can still do so."

Rehman is known to wield significant influence within the region and remains the only Pakistani lawmaker to have met with the Taliban's supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada.

Recently, India condemned Pakistan's fresh strikes on Afghanistan. "We have seen reports of border clashes in which several Afghan civilians have been killed," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a weekly media briefing.

"We condemn such attacks on innocent Afghan people. India strongly supports the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Afghanistan," he said.

A spokesperson for the Taliban regime claimed Pakistan initiated the attacks and that Kabul was "forced to respond".

The two countries have been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute since the Taliban authorities retook control in Kabul in 2021, with Islamabad accusing its neighbour of harbouring terrorists - a charge that the Afghan government denies.

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