Delhi: Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar hoisted the national flag at Gaj Dwar in the new Parliament building in Delhi. He was accompanied by the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla during the ceremony.
The hoisting ceremony took place a day before the five-day Parliament session begins Monday which may see parliamentary proceedings shift from the old to the adjacent new building.
Earlier, Dhankhar and Birla were separately accorded a guard of honour by the CRPF's Parliament Duty Group. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, Union Ministers of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghawal and V Muraleedharan, and leaders of various parties in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha were present on the occasion.
Congress Chief Skips Flag Hoisting
Congress president and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, however on Saturday, said he would not be able to attend the flag hoisting function and expressed disappointment over getting the invite quite late.
He wrote to Rajya Sabha Secretary General P C Mody on Saturday saying that he received the invite for the function only in the late evening of September 15.
"I am writing this letter with a sense of disappointment that I have received your invite for flag hoisting function tomorrow at New Parliament Building only on September 15, 2023, quite late in the evening," the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said in his letter.
The Congress president said he is currently in Hyderabad to attend meetings of the newly constituted Congress Working Committee on September 16 and 17 and will return to Delhi late Sunday night.
"It will not be feasible for me to attend the function scheduled for tomorrow morning," Kharge said.
The new Parliament building, built adjacent to the existing one, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 28.
