KCR receives Prez, walks red carpet with bete noire guv, but skips dinner

Hyderabad : Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday kept his tryst with protocol and drove down to Hakimpet airport here to receive President Droupadi Murmu, who’s on her four-day southern sojourn.

KCR accorded a warm welcome to the President after twice skipping the courtesy for Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visits to Hyderabad.

Though the chief minister walked the red carpet with governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, he skipped the Raj Bhavan dinner in honour of the President. KCR and Soundararajan, however, spoke for a few minutes and exchanged pleasantries at the airport for the first time in a year after ties strained. This is Murmu’s first visit to Hyderabad after taking over as President and will stay here till December 30.

After arriving at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in the morning, the President immediately left for Srisailam to offer prayers. Minister for women and child welfare Satyavathi Rathod and the governor received her at Shamshabad. Later, KCR and his team extended a warm welcome to Murmu at Hakimpet air station, where she touched down on her way back from Srisailam. Besides the CM and the governor, legislative council chairman Gutta Sukhender Reddy, speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and several ministers, including minister KT Rama Rao, Harish Rao, MP Joginpally Santosh Kumar and other elected representatives attended the welcome ceremony.

Though KCR’s office cited a busy schedule to skip the Raj Bhavan dinner, the chief minister has over the past year stayed away from any programme at the governor house and had also stopped inviting the governor to address the joint session of assembly.
Also, KCR had skirted receiving Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Hyderabad visits and deputed his minister, Talasani Srinivas Yadav, as ‘minister in waiting’.