JOIN USSarkozy, Bruni want to be left alone at the Taj
The French President and his glamourous ex-supermodel wife want to avoid the media glare when they visit the monument in Agra on Sunday.
The advisory that the Ministry of External Affairs issued to the journalists on the French first couple’s tour to India makes it clear that the media would not have an opportunity to cover their visit to the Taj.
The Agra leg of Sarkozy’s four-day itinerary in India has been marked with ‘No Media Coverage’ in the advisory issued by the MEA on Friday.
Sarkozy and Bruni will arrive in Bangalore at 10 am on Saturday. After a visit to the Indian Space Research Organisation and other programmes in the city, they will leave for Agra at 1:50 pm. They will stay at the historic city’s luxurious Amar Vilas hotel. The couple will possibly spend the evening seeing the magnificent monument of love from the hotel.
They will go for a closer look at the Taj on Sunday. They will also visit the Fatehpur Sikri. It is not Sarkozy’s first visit to Taj though. The French president, who will turn 56 next month, had been to the 17th century monument during his visit to India as the chief guest at the Republic Day ceremony in January 2008. Though his romance with the celebrity songwriter-cum-singer had been making headlines, Sarkozy was not accompanied by Bruni on that visit – purportedly to avoid a protocol issue in India. They had not tied the knot then and New Delhi’s conservative officialdom had subtly conveyed to Paris its unease over according official welcome to the girlfriend of the visiting Head of the State. But the grandeur of Taj had wowed Sarkozy.
Though New Delhi is trying to keep the visit of Sarkozy-Bruni to Agra out of the glare of media in India, it is not clear if the French journalists accompanying the president would get a chance to cover it. The possibility of a photo-op at Taj – though unscheduled – has not been ruled out by the officials.