AP CM Naidu misses GES2017 summit

Hyderabad: In all likelihood, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu may not be attending the Global Entrepreneurship Summit to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Tuesday. The star attraction at the meeting would be US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka who will be leading a delegation from her country.

According to sources in the Telangana government, a formal invitation has been extended to Chandrababu Naidu to participate in the event. "We have invited only Chandrababu Naidu and no one else. We sent the invite to him," a senior official in the Industries department said.

Though the Centre is organising the summit, it has allowed the Telangana government to invite a specific number of guests, including Chief Ministers of neighbouring states. The state government, using this quota, invited actress Deepika Padukone and cricketer MS Dhoni, who expressed inability to attend. Among those invited for the mega event and who had confirmed participation include actress Sonam Kapoor and actor Ramcharan Teja.

When contacted, a senior official in the AP government said Chandrababu Naidu, for sure, will not be attending the inaugural of the summit and is unlikely to turn up on any of the remaining two days either. "I am not aware if any formal invitation has been extended to Naidu, but indications are that he would skip the summit even if there is an invitation," he said.

Naidu's reluctance to attend the summit, according to him, is because Naidu is not part of the inaugural and extending an invitation to him like inviting all and sundry is considered beneath his dignity.

But the TDP blames the Centre and not Telangana for not inviting Chandrababu Naidu since it is organising the summit. A senior legislator from the ruling TDP faulting the Centre said: “The Centre should keep in mind the fact that Hyderabad is still a combined capital for both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh as per the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. If the event of global stature is held in the combined capital, wisdom calls for the participation of Chief Ministers of both the states,” he asserted.

Top officials of the Telangana Industries and Commerce department said the government had formally extended invitation to the CMs of the remaining two neighbouring states of Karnataka and Maharashtra also. Earlier, it was planned to invite a group of officials and ministers from the Industries departments of the three states to the conference. Due to some administrative problems, the state government dropped the proposal at the eleventh hour.

Interestingly, Naidu’s daughter-in-law N Brahmani, who is Executive Director of Heritage Foods, was among the young entrepreneurs invited for the summit under entrepreneur category from the neighbouring state. Nearly 80 to 100 entrepreneurs are expected to attend the summit from Andhra Pradesh. Sources said that some of them would make presentation on the promotion of aqua, agriculture and manufacturing sectors in Andhra Pradesh.