HYDERABAD: BC Welfare Minister Ponnam Prabhakar and Chamara Kiran Kumar Reddy MP said on Saturday that the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi was an Indian government-sponsored event, not a BJP event, and that opposition leaders should have been invited as well. They said the summit was an international event and Congress was not opposed to it. They alleged that the Youth Congress protests were aimed at protecting the interests of farmers and poor people in the country, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi had failed to protect them.Ponnam Prabhakar said that when the Telangana Uprising-2047 Summit was held, former Prime Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Union Ministers G. Kishan Reddy and Bandi Sanjay were invited. He said KCR and the two EU ministers, who belong to opposition parties BRS and BJP respectively, were given due respect and invited. He added that national development requires unity and cooperation among nations and it is inappropriate for the Center to act in a discriminatory manner.He said Congress had no intention to disrupt the AI summit, but alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Center had acted in a bigoted manner. He alleged that India should have shown unity in front of the world but the Bharatiya Janata Party government was insulting opposition leaders. He further pointed out that Rahul Gandhi was allotted a third row seat on Republic Day. He added that in the past when Congress was in power, it had a history of respecting opposition leaders by giving them front-row seats alongside the prime minister.Chamara Kiran Kumar Reddy questioned the political ethics of deliberately excluding opposition leaders from international conferences such as the AI Summit. He said the more Rahul Gandhi is blocked, the more his stature and popularity will grow. He added that Rahul Gandhi was not a leader driven by status or position and the Gandhi family was known for making sacrifices for the country. He said the central government’s policies should change and India must show unity before the world.
