Jaitley skips Bengal's global investors' summit

January 20, 2017 13:33

In a setback to the 3rd edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley did not attend the event today amid the not-so-good current political relationship between the state and the Centre.

Jaitley was scheduled to attend the event, but he was believed to have been asked by the party high command to stay away, according to sources.

In a polite letter to Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, Jaitley wrote that he was busy with the Punjab poll campaign and hence he cannot be chief guest at the global investors summit being held in Kolkata.

The three-line letter followed Bengal's Finance Minister Amit Mitra repeatedly calling Jaitley on his mobile requesting him to be the chief guest.

The BJP's Kolkata unit also prevailed upon Jaitley to reject the invitation from West Bengal.

Relations between West Bengal and the Union government have worsened of late, especially after the arrest of two TMC MPs Tapas Pal and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, in connection with the Rose Valley scam. Following this, the state government arrested BJP leader Jayaprakash Majumdar in connection with an alleged bribery connection.

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