G20 Summit: Nitish Kumar, Stalin, Kejriwal and others to attend President's dinner

Former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda will not attend President Droupadi Murmu's dinner, hosted for G20 leaders on Saturday, due to ill health.

"I will not attend the G20 dinner... due to health reasons," Gowda posted on X. According to people close to Singh, he too had communicated his regrets to the government of his inability to attend the dinner because of health reasons.



Among states governed by non-BJP parties, CMs of West Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand have confirmed their attendance.

A late Thursday evening discussion among INDIA bloc constituents saw Bihar CM Nitish Kumar make up his mind on attending the event. Among Congress chief ministers, only Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu will attend the dinner.

Offices of chief ministers of Rajasthan, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh confirmed to ET that they would not attend for different reasons.

Congress has said the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, who is also the party chief, has not been invited to the dinner. "They have decided not to invite the Leader of the Opposition, it tells you something. It tells you that they don't value the leader of 60% of India's population. And it's something that people should think about. Why do they feel the need to do that and what is the type of thinking that goes behind that," Congress' Rahul Gandhi said in Brussels.

Non-NDA, non-INDIA CMs Navin Patnaik, Jagan Mohan Reddy and Chandrasekhara Rao will also not be present. Reddy is out of the country.