Pratibha Patil hosts last At Home

The innermost VVIP cordon saw Patil seated along with Thailand`s first woman Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and receiving the guests.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with his wife Gursharan Kaur, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia were in the VVIP enclosure as people lined up to meet the President.

The three chief of services General V K Singh, Air Chief N A K Browne and Admiral Nirmal Verma were seen mixing with the crowd while cabinet ministers Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony, Sharad Pawar and Farooq Abdullah remained confined to their separate enclosure.

Age seemed to be no barrier for 92-year-old Marshall of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh who was seen moving and shaking hands with the guests.

After the National Anthem was played for the second time, Gandhi walked across the enclosure to talk to Vimla Sharma, wife of former President S D Sharma.

The Congress President spent some time with Sharma, who had come on a wheel chair to attend the function which saw a presence of nearly 1700 guests. This is the last At Home function of Patil`s tenure which comes to end on July 25.