Trinamool Congress chief and railway minister Mamata Banerjee reportedly refused on Monday to attend the two meetings convened by prime minister Manmohan Singh at his residence on May 21, 2010. One of the meetings has been called to plan celebrations to mark the 150th birth anniversary year of Rabindranath Tagore, while the other will discuss how to celebrate Swami Vivekananda’s 148th birth anniversary on July 4, 2010.
Mamata has also declined the invitation for a dinner organised by Singh on May 24, 2010, to mark the first anniversary of the UPA-II government, of which Trinamool is the second-biggest constituent. The dinner at the prime minister’s residence was expected to be attended by leaders of all parties that are members of UPA-II. The official reason for Mamata skipping the events is her preoccupation with preparations for the polls to 81 civic bodies in West Bengal on May 30, 2010.
However, highly placed sources told DNA that the actual reason why the Trinamool chief had chosen to give the meetings a miss was her annoyance with the prime minister for inviting West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and CPI(M) politburo and Rajya Sabha member Sitaram Yechuri to the meeting to discuss Tagore’s anniversary celebrations.
“It is Trinamool’s official stand that none of its leaders would share the dais with CPI(M) leaders. As such, there is no question of her [Mamata’s] presence in this case as well,” a party source said.
He, however, refused to comment on why Mamata was skipping the prime minister’s dinner.
