By IANS
Jalgaon (Maharashtra) : President Pratibha Patil will be visiting her hometown Jalgaon Friday – her first trip here after assuming the country’s highest office.
Patil will receive a felicitation hosted by the municipal corporation of Jalgaon city in the Khandesh region. She is scheduled to visit Saturday the Changdeo-Muktai temple at Muktainagar, about 35 km from here.
Though the tidings of the first woman president’s keenly awaited visit have filled her hometown with joy, she will have to disappoint many for reasons of security and protocol.
She will not be able to meet the students and teachers of the Raosaheb Rupchand Vidyalaya, popularly known as R.R. Shala, where she studied for six years from 1945 to 1951.
“Pratibha-tai will not be able to make it even to her brother’s house here,” a source in the district collector’s office told IANS.
The president had earlier visited her husband’s hometown Amravati in Vidarbha besides Nashik, Sangli and Solapur.
The president’s visit to Maharashtra coincides with that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is scheduled to unveil a statue of late Dhananjayrao Gadgil, the father of cooperative movement, in Ahmednagar Friday. He is scheduled to attend two more functions in Aurangabad and Pune the same day and three in Gondia in Vidarbha Saturday.
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and state Water Resources Minister Ajit Pawar would be accompanying Patil on her trip to Jalgaon.