The way the Chandrababu Naidu government has extended invitation to Leader of Opposition and YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy for the Krishna Pushkaraalu has drawn a lot of flak not only from the Opposition party, but also from a section of media.
The Naidu government sent invitations to several VIPs, including film personalities, for the inaugural of the Krishna Pushkaralu, but ignored to send the invitation to Jagan, who enjoys the Cabinet rank by virtue of being the Leader of the Opposition party.
When it was flashed by some media persons, Naidu sent his minister Ravela and a couple of other TDP leaders to Jagan’s residence in Hyderabad with an invitation in the evening. Naturally, an agitated Jagan refused to meet them and said he would take part in the Pushkarams at his convenient date.
The question here is whether it is necessary for a government to send invitations to everybody for a spiritual event like Krishna Pushkaraalu.
First of all, it is not a government function but a religious congregation of people to pay obeisance to Krishna river. Since the government is making arrangements for the event, there will be formal performance of Pooja by the chief minister, since he is the ruler of the state. It is not an official event or a political meeting.
Whoever wanted to participate in Krishna Pushkaraalu, they have to come on their own without any invitations from somebody.
In Telangana, there is no such official invitation exercise. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao, too, performed the inaugural of Krishna Pushkaraalu at Alampur, but he did not invite any Opposition leader to the event. And nobody took any objection to KCR like Jagan did with Naidu, since Pushkaralu is not an official function.
But since the Naidu government sought to project it as a government event by extending invitations, he will have to take the blame of not inviting the Opposition leader!
