Subramanian Swamy, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Rajya Sabha MP, on Tuesday (January 5) reiterated his demand to cancel the January 26 'Republic Day Parade', shortly after the UK Government confirmed that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has postponed his Republic Day visit to India citing the need to oversee the pandemic response back home in the UK.
Swamy once again urged the Narendra Modi-led government to cancel the Republic Day Parade, terming it as "unfair on the parade participants".
He said that India should have taken the step earlier so that UK PM Boris Johnson could have been requested to come instead for the 2022 Republic Day, a year later.
"Modi government needs to cancel the Republic Day Parade. It is unfair on the parade particpants. We should have done it earlier so that we could have requested PM Boris to come instead for the 2022 Republic Day," posted Subramanian Swamy from his official Twitter handle.
For a while now, BJP MP Subramanian Swamy had been raising his concerns over the Republic Day parade scheduled for later this month.
Earlier this day, he had reiterated his demand to cancel the Republic Day Parade on January 26. Not just this, Swamy had also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier today to request UK PM Boris Johnson to postpone the latter's visit to India on the ocassion of Republic Day.
Three days ago, he had cited media reports, which state that 150 Army jawans have contracted the coronavirus while in Delhi during rehearsal for the Republic Day parade.
For this and other such incidents which are "too tragic to report", Swamy has been requesting Prime Minister Modi to cancel the Republic Day parade this year. This, he said, will come as a relief for the UK PM as well, since Johnson would then not have to leave London in the midst of Brexit.
Notably, the UK Government, in an official statement on this day, said that Boris Johnson had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi this morning, expressing his regret that he will be unable to visit India later this month as planned.
In light of the national lockdown announced last night, and the speed at which the new coronavirus variant is spreading, Johnson said that it was important for him to remain in the UK so he can focus on the domestic response to the virus, the government statement detailed.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he hopes to be able to visit India in the first half of 2021, and ahead of the UK’s G7 Summit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to attend as a guest, it said.
The development comes amid a rising alarm over the new coronavirus strain in the UK and a renewed rise in the number of cases. Several in the political quarters had projected that the leader's visit could be a cause of concern for New Delhi.
