Advani gets front row seat after Tiwari nudge

NDA Working Chairman L K Advani today moved from one row to another before he was finally seated in the front row at the swearing-in ceremony of Vice President Hamid Ansari at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

When Advani arrived in the ornate Ashoka Hall of the presidential palace before the swearing in began, he was offered a seat in the fourth row in which leaders including MPs Shivanand Tiwari (JD-U) and Derek O'Brien (TMC) were sitting.

"Seeing this, I expresssed my annoyance that why a senior leader like Advani is being seated in the fourth row," Tiwari told PTI.

Advani was then asked to take an aisle seat in the third row, which he did without any fuss.

However, the matter had by then come to the notice of Minister of State in the PMO V Narayanasamy, who then requested Advani to take a seat in the first row next to the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj.

Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley was also seated in the first row.