KOLKATA: The Bengal government alleged on Friday that the Centre has declined at the last minute CM Mamata Banerjee’s request to go to Kathmandu to attend the inaugural session of Nepali Congress’s 14th national convention.
Banerjee had sought permission from the ministry of external affairs to attend the session on Friday, following Nepali Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba’s invite to the CM on November 26. Deuba wrote that Banerjee’s “presence will encourage us to work together in strengthening democracy in our region and beyond and reinforce our party-to-party relations”.
The Bengal government, according to rules, sought clearance from the ministry. The MEA sought “clarifications”, to which the state responded, senior state government officials said. But clearance was declined “very late on Thursday” because it was a “private invite”, they said.
The CM had to abort trips to Rome this September as well to Chicago in 2018 after being denied permission.