Congress leaders feel that not inviting the chief minister for the NASSCOM event is an insult to the citizens of Bengaluru.
Nobody likes to feel left out, it looks as if Karnataka chief minister, Siddaramaiah, and his Congress party are feeling rather miffed about an invitation that he didn't receive.
On Tuesday this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Bengaluru along with Angela Merkel for two events, one at German company, Bosch, and one at the Leela Palace Hotel, hosted by NASSCOM. Mr Siddaramaiah was present at the first event, but was absent at the second. He had not been invited.
Congress workers staged a protest outside NASSCOM on Thursday morning as the party raised questions about the omission. Earlier senior leader Digvijaya Singh had taken a dig at PM Modi's cooperative federalism.State minister, Dinesh Gundu Rao said, "This is a very unfortunate situation. Karnataka and Bengaluru are the hub of IT and computer science and startups... We don't compete with any other city in India but with world cities... I don't know who to blame. NASSCOM as an organization should have been more careful in seeing that proper protocol is maintained and respect is given to the state leaders... NASSCOM exists because of Bengaluru."
Congress leaders feel that not inviting the chief minister is in a way, an insult to the citizens of Bengaluru and the people of Karnataka, as BJP has disrespected their sentiments.
On the day of the event itself, NDTV had asked the NASSCOM president. R Chandrashekar, about the absence of Mr Siddaramaiah. He said, "As far as we are concerned, we have organized the event.We have done it in consultation with the Government of India, consultation with the Fraunhofer Institute. I would not be able to comment on other aspects."