For the first time in the last five years, prestigious annual meeting of the World Economic Forum to be held at Davos in Switzerland, will be missing a very important person this year.
He is none other than Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
According to official sources, Naidu has dropped his plan to tour Davos this year, apparently due to intense political activity and ensuing elections, following suggestions from his senior party colleagues.
Naidu was supposed to lead a 17-member delegation and for a seven-day visit to Davos for the WEF’s 49th annual meeting from January 20 to 26.
Since he has cancelled his trip, the delegation would be led by his son and IT minister Nara Lokesh, who is as “intellectual” as his father is in economics.
He attended the WEF conference from 1996 to 2004 and has been attending it every year since 2014. So, for the first time in the capacity of the chief minister, Naidu will be skipping the WEF, much to the disappointment of the organisers.
In fact, there was a talk in a section of media that the Modi government was very much envious of Naidu’s popularity in the World Economic Forum.
So, it tried to curtail Naidu’s visit to Davos and cut short the tour to just four days and restricted the delegation to only five members.
Naidu fumed at Modi saying the latter was acting with vengeance towards the state in all the matters.
He alleged that the Centre was trying to sabotage his Davos trip with a political motive and coming in the way of the State government’s attempt to attract investments.
Afraid of Naidu’s outburst, Modi immediately lifted the restrictions and ordered that all permissions be given to his Davos visit!
