French President, wife among leaders flocking to Taj Mahal

AGRA: Sunday was an unusually busy day for officials deployed at the Taj Mahal in

Agra

. Apart from French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, spouses and family members of the heads of Bangladesh, Comoros and

Tuvalu

visited the 17th century Mughal-era monument.

The French dignitaries were received by UP deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma and Agra mayor

Naveen Jain

. After a brief traditional welcoming ceremony at Shilpgram, the Macrons were escorted to the Taj in a golf cart through the East gate at 5.50 pm. They spent over an hour here.

While the guide assigned to the couple was not of much help as he couldn’t speak French, a historian accompanying the dignitaries briefed them about the history of the architectural marvel. Surprisingly, the Macrons gave the iconic

Diana

bench at the monument a miss and didn’t get themselves clicked there.

“Thank you for your welcome in this magical place. The Taj Mahal belongs to India and its history; it is a love story of the seventeenth century. The Mughals and Islam have a share in it, but it is also bears witness to universality that makes India and continues to do so. Thank you for this lesson of beauty, love and universality,” Macron wrote in French in the visitor’s book at Taj Mahal.

Divisional commissioner K Rammohan Rao, IG Raja Srivastava, ADG (

Agra Zone

) Ajay Anand, SSP Amit Pathak, DM Gaurav Dayal and CISF commandant Brij Bhushan were present at the monument during the visit.

Earlier in the day, spouses of the heads of Bangladesh, Comoros and Tuvalu visited the monument. In fact, the three ladies were to be accompanied by the spouses of the heads of Fiji, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Venezuela and Australia, but they cancelled their plan at the last minute.

Hours before the French president’s visit, a broken beehive caused some concern among the organisers as bees swamped the monument’s vicinity. However, no untoward incident was reported as officials controlled the situation.


The sale of tickets for visitors was closed after 3 pm on Sunday and the monument was closed for the general public at 4pm.