Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee may have a private meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, when he arrives in Kolkata for a two-day visit, but will not go to the airport to receive him, senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders close to the party chief said on Friday.
Banerjee told her close aides that urban development minister and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim will be sent to the airport. The prime minister’s plane will land around 3.30 pm and he will attend two back to back official programmes in Kolkata before visiting Belur Math in Howrah. He will return to Raj Bhawan after 8 pm and spend the night there.
TMC leaders said Banerjee may meet Modi either at Millennium Park by the Hooghly river in the afternoon, where the Prime Minister will inaugurate a light and sound show, or around 9 pm at Raj Bhawan. The final schedule will depend on circumstances and their convenience, said a TMC leader.
Mansukh Mandaviya, minister of state for shipping and chemical and fertilizers, met the chief minster on Friday and invited her to the 150th year celebration of the Kolkata Port Trust at Netaji Indoor Stadium on Sunday morning to be inaugurated by Modi. Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, with whom the TMC government is having a cold war for months, will also be present.
Meanwhile, security has been tightened all along the route that the Prime Minister’s convoy will follow in the city and Howrah because Left parties, Congress, far-Left groups, students, Muslim organisations and the student wing of the TMC have planned agitations in different parts of the city as well as the airport against the amended citizenship law.
Several parties, including the CPI(M), plan to show Modi black flags and shout ‘go back’ slogans. Officers of the Kolkata Police and Special Protection Group travelled the entire route twice on Friday to finalise security plans.
