New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired an all-party meeting at Rashtrapati Bhavan to solicit suggestions for the G-20 summit to be held in September next year under India’s presidency.
He sought the parties’ cooperation to make the event in September next year a big success, while Opposition leaders urged him to use the opportunity for the country’s benefit.
Modi said that it was an occasion for the entire country to be proud of and everyone should contribute to its success, sources said.
TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao stayed away. Party sources said that they had received the letter from the Centre on November 23 inviting Rao to the meeting.
There was speculation that he could either depute party working president K.T. Rama Rao or a senior MP but it did not happen.
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy participated in the meeting. The Chief Minister promised all support from the Andhra Pradesh government for the prestigious G20 summit.
He said that as G20 was now being headed by India, it would not be fair to make statements about it from a political perspective. “All of us must stand united at a time when the international community is looking at India as the G20 leader,” he said.
Chief Ministers Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik, Eknath Shinde, Arvind Kejriwal, Jagan Mohan Reddy, M.K. Stalin, BJP president J.P. Nadda, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary D. Raja and Telugu Desam chief N. Chandrababu Naidu were among those who attended the meeting.
Naidu laid stress on preparing a vision document at least for the next 25 years for the benefit of future generations to focus on digital knowledge.
Addressing the G20 meeting, Naidu opined that India would emerge as number one or two in the world if it could encourage the digital knowledge in a big way given the strong youth power available in the country.
From the government side, home minister Amit Shah, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, defence minister Rajnath Singh and commerce minister Piyush Goyal were present.
Sources said the MEA apprised the participants about the programmes planned by the government during India’s G-20 presidency that began on December 1 this year. About 200 meetings at various levels are being planned across the country in the run-up to the G-20 summit.
Some Opposition leaders, including Sitaram Yechury and D. Raja of the Left, noted that India taking over the presidency was by rotation and said it should not be projected as the government’s achievement, sources said.
Prime Minister Modi, meanwhile, thanked various world leaders on Twitter, including US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida for their tweets supporting India’s G-20 presidency.
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