India angry as Queen to miss Commonwealth games

Announcement Prince Charles to attend instead comes as UK government talks up 'enhanced partnership' with India

Britain's new "enhanced partnership" with India got off to a rocky start today as Delhi reacted angrily to a decision by the Queen not to attend the Commonwealth Games this autumn.

After breathlessly reporting that Indo-Anglo relations had topped the foreign policy part of the Queen's speech, India's media gave the decision to send Prince Charles instead front-page treatment. "Royal Snub", read one headline. Noting that the monarch, 84, has attended every games except the 1966 Kingston event, papers quoted organisers and athletes angered by the decision.

The Mail Today quoted Joaquim Carvalho, India's hockey coach, as saying: "If [the Queen] can go to other places that she could certainly have come to Delhi." While the sprinter and hurdler PT Usha said the decision was "doubly sad".

A spokesman for Buckingham palace attributed the Queen's decision to "the volume of engagements, coupled with other overseas commitments".

The Commonwealth Games is the biggest such event to be staged in India since the Asian Games in 1982. With more than 70 countries competing and hundreds of thousands of spectators expected, it is seen as the local equivalent of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the moment when India demonstrates its new economic, cultural and organisational power.

Delhi has seen hundreds of millions of pounds lavished on sporting facilities, roads, flyovers, carparks, roadbridges and the laborious replacement – by hand – of miles of stone pavements. Thousands of the city's notoriously rude rickshaw drivers have received lessons in civility and the English language. Slums along key routes, such as that from the airport into the city centre, have been cleared or hidden by hoardings. Many monuments that had fallen into disrepair have been restored, while a vast new airport terminal has been built specifically for the event and the capital's metro extended. The total cost of the event is estimated to be about £4bn.

The sense of disappointment over the Queen's decision is palpable. "What can we say? At least Prince Charles will be present. We will make the necessary arrangements," said Sheila Dikshit, Delhi's chief minister. Organisers of the games said that they were OK with the decision.

India has a complex relationship with its former colonial overlords. Local commentators revel in the contrast between India's annual economic growth of 7-10% and the flagging economies of the west.

But perceived slights from British politicians can provoke heated reactions, as the former foreign secretary David Milliband found out when his manner with local counterparts and his comments about disputed Kashmir caused disquiet last year.

According to UK sources the new government in London is hoping that the "deep and historical ties" between Britain and India will help it make the most of India's strategic importance. The details of how that might work in practice is unclear.

The Indian post office has prepared a special set of stamps to celebrate the arrival of Queen's baton – the equivalent of the Olympic torch – from Pakistan on 25 June 25 after a 100,000-mile global relay.