Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday urged the Congress Party not to play politics over the absence of Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy from a function to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kollam on Tuesday and defended the absence of the chief minister by calling it a private function.
"I want to make it clear that it is a private function. The private organisation decides whom to invite and whom to not. I think there should be no politics on this," Naqvi told the media here.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was on Saturday asked to keep off a function to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, which had invited him earlier to preside over it.
The function, scheduled for Tuesday, is to unveil the former Chief Minister and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, R. Sankar's statue in Kollam.
Chandy had said in a statement that SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellapally Natesan advised him to stay away because "certain quarters" might not like his presence.
