Twist to Yoga Day: Vice President ignored event, says BJP's Ram Madhav; wasn't invited retorts Hamid Ansari

NEW DELHI: Two successive tweets — later deleted — by BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav seemingly criticising Vice-President Hamid Ansari and the Rajya Sabha TV that reports to his office struck a discordant note to the otherwise grandiose and picture-perfect International Yoga Day Celebrations.

While Madhav tweeted asking why Ansari stayed away from Sunday’s Yoga Day functions and why the channel that is funded by taxpayer money ‘blacked out’ the function, the vice-president’s office told EThe wasn’t invited for any of the Yoga Day-related functions. The channel also said it had telecast the event live.

Madhav’s tweets seemed to endorse the criticism of Ansari earlier in the day by various right-wing Twitter handles that he was missing from the events.

Madhav’s tweets began on Sunday evening, the first one at 5.14 pm. "Did RS TV dat (sic) runs on tax payers money completely blackout Yoga Day event? While President participated VP gave a miss (sic)." At 5.38 pm, he sent: "I am informed dat d VP (sic) was unwell. I withdrew my tweet. My apologies because the institution of VP deserves respect."

The vice-president’s office told ET he did not attend the function since he was not invited for it and being the holder of a constitutional position, he could only go to an event if invited. "The vice-president is well. He would have attended had he been invited. He practices yoga every day. The constitutional authority goes to a state event when invited by the organising ministry. The vice-president did not get an invite from the Ayush minister," said an official in Ansari’s office.

ET could not contact the minister heading Department of Ayush, Shripad Yesso Naik, as he was busy with Yoga Day-related functions till late Sunday evening. Joint secretary (administration) in Ayush, AK Ganeriwala, who was responsible for sending out invites, declined to confirm if the vice-president had been extended an invitation. "I can’t say anything. These are higher-level decisions and I got the list of invitees from the top. I was only the post office," he said.

Madhav, who had deleted his tweets by then, declined to comment. However, sources close to him said given how President Pranab Mukherjee had taken the initiative and organised a Yoga function at Rashtrapati Bhavan while sending out a goodwill message, the vice-president could also have done the same.

A Rashtrapati Bhavan official told ET that President Mukherjee conducted the Yoga Day functions on his own and there was no official invite from the government. The President is not always invited for government functions such as the Run for Unity. Meanwhile, Madhav’s account of the Rajya Sabha TV’s coverage of the day’s celebrations also appeared to be off the mark.

RS TV CEO Gurdeep Singh Sappal told ET that not only had the channel, which is headed by the vice-president by virtue of being the chairman of the Upper House of Parliament, telecast the event live, it had also telecast various programmes including four documentaries on Yoga and the Department of Ayush. "These are just rumours," he said, speaking about comments on Twitter that the channel had boycotted the event.