With US President-elect Jo Biden’s inauguration just days away, there has been speculation and several media reports about whether certain world leaders will be attending the ceremony.
In Pakistan, rumours that former president Asif Ali Zardari and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had been invited were doing the rounds on social media while almost all television outlets quoted PPP sources as saying the father-son duo were invited and would be attending the inauguration.
However, setting the rumours to rest, PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar told BBC Urdu that the former president and the PPP chairman “have not been invited to the inauguration and are not attending the ceremony”.
Similar news reports have also cropped up in other parts of the world. In India, Congress supporters claimed a few weeks ago that former prime minister Manmohan Singh was invited and would be attending – the news was later denied by Singh himself.
In the US, the media circulated a similar report about Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador forcing him to declare: “I don’t have an invitation, and I have decided not to leave (the country) much” during the pandemic.
Scaled-down celebration
The coronavirus pandemic and the fear of violence has forced the organisers of the 2021 United States presidential inauguration to discourage foreign leaders from attending the ceremony.
Members of the Biden inauguration committee have indicated that they are not inviting foreign leaders to the Jan 20 ceremony and are also urging Americans to watch it from their homes……
Source: dawn.com
