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NEW DELHI: Top opposition figures, including Congress’s Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar and Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja were absent from the Republic Day parade. Trinamool Congress is also understood to have been unrepresented.While leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha and Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge has been camping in Bengaluru for the last three days, where he unfurled the national flag, party leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is in north Bengal for preparations of Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.Congress sources said the leadership has lately stayed away from the parade because of the “objectionable seating arrangement” done under the Modi government. Rahul returned to Delhi on Thursday night as the yatra is on a two-day break.Sources also said R-Day parade invites are given to individual MPs who decide on their own about attending the event, and there is no way of knowing who were present.Kejriwal, meanwhile, was running a fever and had cancelled all his appointments in the last two days. His party colleagues, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha, meanwhile, were critical of the Modi government’s “rejection” of Punjab’s tableau. “The rejection of our tableau is an insult to our history and sacrifices, and deeply hurts every Punjabi… All you can do is sink low and reject a tableau, BJP. But you can’t remove our name from the history of India’s struggle to become a republic – a struggle to which your contribution has been zero,” Chadha said .Yechury was also away for pre-scheduled party programmes in Tamil Nadu.
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