Karnataka Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah was ‘barred’ from receiving Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the airport on the eve of the latter meeting the successful scientists of Indian Space Research organisation (ISRO)’s Chandrayaan-3 Mission in Bengaluru.
The claim that CM Siddaramaiah was ‘barred’ from receiving PM Modi was made by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh. He took to microblogging site ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) to post, “The Prime Minister is scheduled to directly land in Bengaluru tomorrow at 6 am after his after his latest foreign jaunt to congratulate ISRO. He is apparently so irritated with the CM and Deputy CM of Karnataka for felicitating the scientists of ISRO before him, that he has purportedly barred the CM from receiving him at the airport, going against protocol”.
Ramesh in his post claimed that PM Modi has been ‘irritated’ with the fact that CM Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM Sivakumar had felicitated the scientists before PM Modi.
“Has PM Modi forgotten CM Modi’s visit to the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad on 22nd Oct, 2008 just after the successful launch of the Chandrayaan-I at a time when Dr. Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister?” Ramesh asked in his post.
Meanwhile, CM Siddaramaiah on Thursday said the state government will organise a special programme to officially felicitate ISRO team for this success. The CM visited the Missions Operations Complex at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru and felicitated ISRO chief S Somanath and his team on the successful landing.
CM Siddaramaiah termed the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the South Pole of Moon as a “historic achievement”.
“The government will officially honour them by organising a special programme at the Banquet hall at Vidhana Soudha. About 500 scientists from Karnataka were part of it. ISRO Chairman (S) Somanath and his team will be honoured,” Siddaramaiah said.
India on Wednesday scripted history as ISRO’s ambitious third Moon mission Chandrayaan-3’s Lander Module (LM) touched down on the lunar surface, making it only the fourth country to accomplish the feat, and first to reach the uncharted south pole of Earth’s only natural satellite.
The LM comprising the lander (Vikram) and the rover (Pragyan), made the soft landing near the south polar region of the Moon last evening. Earlier today, ISRO announced that the rover ramped down from the lander and “India took a walk on the moon.”
(With agency inputs)
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Updated: 25 Aug 2023, 11:04 PM IST