Overview
- Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said neither Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi nor his Rajya Sabha counterpart Mallikarjun Kharge was invited to the Rashtrapati Bhavan state dinner for Vladimir Putin.
- Shashi Tharoor, who chairs the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, confirmed he was invited and attended, noting the committee chair’s invitations appear to have resumed.
- Footage and reports from the banquet showed Tharoor speaking with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, among other dignitaries.
- Rahul Gandhi reiterated his charge that the government discourages foreign dignitaries from meeting the LoP, a claim officials rejected by stressing such meetings are arranged by visiting teams and pointing to several LoP engagements since June 2024.
- The guest-list dispute played out during Putin’s two-day visit for the India–Russia annual summit, capped by the official banquet hosted by President Droupadi Murmu.