Who is Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi - India’s Chief Guest on 2023 Republic Day

New Delhi: To celebrate 2023 Republic Day, India has invited Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to be the Chief Guest. The development is crucial as both the countries celebrated the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between them. Adding to that, defence minister Rajnath Singh and external affairs minister S Jaishankar also visited Egypt to meet Sisi.

What makes the invite even more special is that India, in the last two years, did not have any guests due to the pandemic.

Egypt has always been one of India’s most important trading partners in the African continent. This is also one of the reasons that India has invited Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

So, who is President Sisi? Let us try to know him more in this story:

Who is President Sisi?

Sisi is the President of Egypt and he took oath as the President in 2014. Since then, he is in the power.  Sisi was the chief of military intelligence under Hosni Mubarak. He came to limelight in 2011 as a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) after the then President Hosni Mubarak stepped down.

Mohammed Morsi was Egypt’s first freely elected civilian president who came to power in 2012.  However, the power lasted only for an year as in July 2013, Sisi, who was appointed by him as head of Egypt’s military, announced his ouster on state TV.

Then, in 2014, Sisi won 97 per cent of the vote in an election and sworn in as the President.

Jaishankar, earlier in October, had informed that Prime Minister Modi shares a personal relationship with President Sisi.

In response to a question, Jaishankar had said, “I know that he has been wanting to visit (Egypt) for some time. It is one of those situations, partly Covid, that has disrupted the travel schedule. But I can assure you it’s very much on his mind.”

The last prime ministerial visit from India to Egypt took place in 2009 when Dr Manmohan Singh visited Cairo for the Non-Aligned Summit, according to the Indian Embassy website.