Former Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa's birthday was celebrated in Varanasi on March 12 as decided earlier on by the party. However, French President Emmanuel Macron's tryst with Varanasi was scheduled for the same day.


Macron was given a traditional welcome with a shower of flower petals, a shehnai recital and chanting of mantras before he took a boat ride along with PM Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath between Assi and Dashwamedh ghats.


People gathered in large numbers along the ghats waved flags of India and France.


And this is precisely where the problem arose.


The AIADMK had festooned the road from the Varanasi airport to the venue where Jayalalithaa's birthday celebrations were to be held with party flags.


The AIADMK flag is a tricolour of black, white and red, which is rarely seen in the BJP bastion of Varanasi. The French flag, incidentally is also a tricolour -- red, white and blue.


The Uttar Pradesh police, nervous that the visiting dignitary would mistake the AIADMK flag as a blacked-out French flag, had the party flags removed.


Obviously, the AIADMK is peeved.