St Stephen’s College withdraws invite to Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee

An invite to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by the Bengali literary society of St Stephen’s has been withdrawn by the college authorities citing protocol issues. She was scheduled to speak to the students on August 1. However, the Chief Minister believes there is a BJP-RSS hand in the withdrawal of the invitation.

"Let them keep trying, she cannot be silenced. The Bengal CM's trip to Delhi is on schedule," said Derek O’Brien, senior Trinamool Congress MP.

“The college has introduced a new system for societies to obtain permission for events. They need to fill in an online form that needs to be approved by the principal. Unfortunately, the system has crashed. Hence, members of the Planning Forum and the Bengali Literary Society gave a written request to invite Mamata Banerjee. Expecting the permission to be granted, they invited her. But the principal denied it citing violation of protocol," said a teacher to The Telegraph.

Mamata Banerjee is also scheduled be the chief guest at the "Love your Neighbour" conference organised by India's largest Christian body, The Catholic Bishops Conference of India, on July 31.

O’Brien referred to two recent instances where Banerjee had to cancel her scheduled visits. Last month, Banerjee had to call off her scheduled trip to Chicago in August to attend the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda's historic speech at the Parliament of World's Religions after the organisers wrote to her that the event has been cancelled due to "unforeseen difficulties" and "demise of a monk".

Days later, Banerjee had to abandon her plans for an eight-day tour to China at the last moment as the scheduled political meetings "at the appropriate level" under the Exchange Programme between the two countries were not confirmed.

"First, the Vivekananda event in Chicago. Then her China visit and now St Stephens! Mamata Banerjee is giving the BJP-RSS sleepless nights,” added O’Brien.