By Liz Mathew, IANS,
Brasilia : Foreign dignitaries visiting India are honoured with an address to a joint session of both houses of parliament that is normally packed to capacity. But in Brazil, where President Pratibha Patil addressed the Senate, her audience was restricted to a privileged few as per convention.
Only 20 senators were present in the 81-member house, leaving many in the president’s party wondering whether MPs had played truant. But Indian and Brazilian officials explained that this was as per convention as attendance is strictly by invitation.
Brazil’s ambassador in New Delhi Marco Antonio Diniz Brandão said: “There is a change in perception. When we convene a special session, we usually do not call all the members. We invite the party leaders to be present.”
Indian embassy officials said the invitation, unlike joint sessions of parliament for visiting dignitaries in India, are purely by invitation to leaders of various parties and caucuses and not open to all members.
“It’s a completely different format from our own country,” said a senior Indian embassy official, speaking on condition that he not be identified as per convention.
“Here only the very important people are invited to these sessions. It should not be seen as any slight to the president,” he explained.
Patil is on a 12-day tour of Latin American countries, starting with Brazil. Her address to the Senate was projected here as a sign of the strengthening relations between the two powerful democracies.
Patil in her speech urged both countries to move the bilateral partnership between the government to the next higher level of partnership between the people of both countries.
Brazil’s bicameral National Congress consists of the Senate of Brazil, the upper house, and the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, the lower house.