मोदी सरकार की ओछी राजनीति जग ज़ाहिर! कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष श्री राहुल गांधी को गणतंत्र दिवस के राष्ट्रीय पर्व पर अंहका… https://t.co/zj68FPtlei — Randeep S Surjewala (@rssurjewala) 1516951301000

NEW DELHI: A row broke out between Congress and BJP over Rahul Gandhi getting a sixth row seat at the Republic Day parade with the opposition alleging a deliberate slight and ruling party leaders saying the protocol set by the UPA when it was in office was being followed.Rahul sat with leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, prompting Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala to call the seating arrangement “cheap politics”. “The arrogant government broke with tradition and convention, and deliberately made Congress president Rahul Gandhi first sit in the fourth row and then in the sixth row in the function to mark the national festival of Republic Day,” he said.BJP, however, refuted the charge. “We are only following the arrangement which was laid down and enforced under UPA,” said Anil Baluni, convener of the party’s media cell. He said under the UPA, presidents of BJP which was the main opposition, Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh, were allocated seat in the 11th row meant for officials.The seating arrangement, likewise, for leaders of opposition in the two Houses, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, was also several rows back. BJP sources contended that the seating arrangement for its leaders was so down the aisle that Gadkari and Singh usually did not attend Republic Day parades and neither did Swaraj while Jaitley did so on occasion.Sources said the government broke from the pattern to provide a special dispensation that allowed Sonia Gandhi a front row seat for the last three years. This was discontinued in the case of Rahul.When asked about Congress’s charge that Rahul was shifted from the fourth row to sixth at the last minute, government sources said sometimes, such changes were required in the case of SPG protectees and no meaning should be read into it.