The Trinamul Congress (TMC) leadership on Saturday alleged a BJP-RSS hand behind the cancellation of state chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s lecture at St Stephen’s College in New Delhi and said, her voice “cannot be silenced”.
St Stephen’s College has withdrawn an invitation extended to Miss Banerjee to deliver a lecture and interact with the students of the famed institute. The event, planned by one of the societies of the college, was scheduled to be held on 1 August.
The programme was cancelled by the college authorities by citing protocol issues. According to sources, the college had written to Miss Banerjee expressing regret for cancelling her planned interaction with students.
Reacting to the development, Trinamul’s national spokesperson and leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha, Derek O’Brien said: “First, the Vivekananda event in Chicago, then her China visit and now St Stephen’s. Mamata Banerjee is giving the BJP-RSS sleepless nights. Let them keep trying, she cannot be silenced.”
However, Miss Banerjee will go to Delhi as scheduled. She will be the chief guest at the “Love your Neighbour” conference organised by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India on 31 July, Mr O’Brien said.
She will continue with the rest of her programme in Delhi after she reaches on 30 July. Last month, Miss Banerjee had cancelled a scheduled visit to China over non-confirmation of “political meetings at an appropriate level” by the Chinese government.