Would have been “nice thing” if oppn leaders were there: Shashi Tharoor

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said that it would have been a “nice thing” if opposition leaders were present at the President’s banquet hosted for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was on a two-day state visit to India.

He said he attended the program in his capacity as chair of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

“I don’t want to get into controversies. I certainly do feel that in a democracy like ours, the opposition leaders could have been there. It would have been a nice thing. I was there more in my capacity as the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament, and I must say I had some interesting conversations,” Tharoor told reporters here.

“The fact is that this is a courtesy we extend to visiting heads of state and government to have a banquet for th