Mamata Banerjee said she received a letter yesterday from a bureaucrat informing her about today’s event.
Kolkata:
Mamata Banerjee today said she would not attend the inauguration of a Netaji statue in Delhi today as the invite was “not proper”. The West Bengal Chief Minister said she received a letter yesterday from a bureaucrat informing her about today’s event.
“I got a letter yesterday, written probably by an undersecretary yesterday saying the PM will inaugurate the Netaji statue at 7 pm and you must be there at 6 pm. As if I am their servant or bonded labour. How can an undersecretary write to a Chief Minister? Why has the culture minister become so big,” Mamata Banerjee said at a party gathering in Kolkata.
“They have lost their senses. That’s why I garlanded the Netaji statue here in the afternoon today to offer my respects. I have done here in Bengal what they would have done in Delhi,” she said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a 28-foot statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose near India Gate and a refurbished Central Vista with the Rajpath road renamed as “Kartvavya Path”.
Mamata Banerjee also took exception to not being invited to meet Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is on a four-day India visit. “Hasina ji is here. I have very good relations with her family. We exchange gifts during pujas and Eid. She sends Hilsa and mangoes. She had shown inclination to meet me. This is for the first time that the Bangladesh PM is here, and Bengal has been left out. I am thankful Hasina ji wanted to meet me. I saw it in the news. Anyways these are international issues, let them be. But why are you so angry? Itna gussa kyon? “said the Chief Minister.
Ms Banerjee said she was curious why the BJP-led central government was “worried” about her meeting Sheikh Hasina.
“I don’t want to talk about external affairs or bilateral ties. But I have noticed that the Centre tries to stop me whenever I am invited to any foreign country. I want to know why the Union government is so worried about me meeting foreign dignitaries,” she remarked.
