New Delhi. Dec. 21: The Narendra Modi government has torn down a key firewall between India's apex diaspora outreach meet and a Gujarat investors' gathering protected by successive governments, with a common foreign guest starring at both events for the first time next month.

Portugal's first ever Indian-origin Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, will visit Bangalore for the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas from January 7-9, and will then fly to Gandhinagar for the Vibrant Gujarat summit on January 10.

Costa, who has roots in Goa, will also visit the tiny western state after Gujarat, and will hold bilateral talks in New Delhi with the Prime Minister.

Both the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas - the country's biggest diaspora gathering - and the Vibrant Gujarat summit - which the state government pitches as the "Davos of the East" - were started in 2003, when the BJP was in power at the Centre and in the state.

The annual diaspora meet was launched by then BJP Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, while the biennial Gujarat summit was initiated as a part of efforts by then state chief minister Modi months after the riots hurt the state's global image.

But both the BJP and the Congress-led UPA that ruled India from 2004 to 2014 carefully maintained a distinction between the two meets even though they were held within days of each other in January, veteran and current diplomats and bureaucrats said.

The decision was rooted in a belief, the officials said, that the government of India should not be seen as benefiting or assisting a politically crucial state - either to bolster the state's ruling party or to persuade voters that an alternative party better cared for its interests.

A key part of that firewall was the care taken to ensure that the chief guest for the diaspora meet was not attending the Gujarat summit as a guest, officials said.

But Modi had, even as Gujarat chief minister, challenged New Delhi's attitude towards the state meet. In 2011, his state government accused the UPA of orchestrating a tax probe on investments committed to Gujarat at that year's meet.

"The country and the world have all appreciated the success of Vibrant Gujarat summit 2011," then Gujarat industries minister Saurabh Patel had said in March 2011. "It is unfortunate that the income tax department of the country has initiated an inquiry."

Gujarat's pre-eminence in Modi's thinking even as Prime Minister became clear soon after he took charge of the country's leadership. Modi spoke of Gujarat with almost every foreign leader he met - from Russian President Vladimir Putin to then Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. In September 2014, he hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Ahmedabad.

Modi further bent traditions in January 2015, his first year as Prime Minister, when both the diaspora meet and the Gujarat summit were held.

Both events were held at the same location for the first time - Gandhinagar's palatial convention centre, the Mahatma Mandir. Modi also inaugurated both events - neither Manmohan Singh nor Vajpayee had attended the previous six Vibrant Gujarat meets.

But the practice of ensuring distinct guests continued that year. Donald Ramotar, then President of Guyana, was chief guest at the Pravasi Divas but did not attend the Gujarat summit.

Some officials pointed to a difference between Costa and earlier chief guests to argue why a break from the past was made this year.

Costa is the first chief executive of a developed country - though Portugal has the lowest per capita GDP in Western Europe - to attend as chief guest of the diaspora meet that in previous editions has emphasised on guests from countries with large Indian origin population proportions.

The Vibrant Gujarat summit, by contrast, has largely focused on drawing investments for the state, for which leaders from developing economies can make only limited contributions, the officials said.

Previous Pravasi Bharatiya Divas chief guests in years when the Vibrant Gujarat summit was also held came from Mauritius, Suriname, Singapore, New Zealand, Mauritius and Guyana. Of these, only Singapore and New Zealand are developed nations, and neither was represented by a head of government like Costa.

But the 2013 and 2015 editions of the Vibrant Gujarat summit had tried to pitch the gathering as more than just a platform to rake in investments for the state. In 2015, Tshering Tobgay, the Prime Minister of tiny and developing Bhutan, was a key guest at the Gujarat meet.