No permission to land chopper, UP CM Yogi Adityanath sets off by road to address rally in West Bengal’s Purulia

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Updated: Feb 05, 2019 15:29 IST

After being denied permission to land his chopper in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will on Tuesday land in Jharkhand’s Bokaro and then travel to West Bengal’s Purulia district by road to address a public rally. (Follow live updates here)

The Mamta Banerjee-led West Bengal government has been having a running feud with the Centre over various issues and has been accused of denying permission for rallies by the BJP, which has condemned Banerjee over the obstacles faced by the party in conducting events in the state.

“Yogi’s meeting is happening,” said BJP Bengal vice president Pratap Banerjee, who is in charge of arranging the meeting in Purulia.

The ground permission is in place. Police have accepted the application for permission to use microphones but is yet to say yes or no. We are assuming their silence to be their nod, Banerjee added.

The chief minister left for Purulia after the adjournment of the Vidhan Sabha session today. He is slated to address the rally at around 3:30 pm.

Before leaving for Jharkhand, Adityanath posted a series of tweets accusing Mamata Banerjee government of indulging in vendetta, violence and corruption.

Yogi was scheduled to address two rallies in West Bengal on February 3, one in North Dinajpur district’s Raiganj and the other in South Dinajpur district’s Balurghat. However, the state government refused permission for Yogi’s chopper to land for both rallies.

Later in the day, Yogi addressed the rally in Raiganj via telephone and accused Banerjee of carrying out“shameful” activities.

The Mamata-BJP confrontation touched a new low when a CBI team landed in Kolkata to question Kolkata top cop Rajiv Kumar over his alleged involvement in the Saradha chit fund scam. It snowballed into a major political controversy with Mamata Banerjee starting an indefinite dharna in protest against the Centre, which is still ongoing.

Uttar Pradesh Science and Technology Minister Mohsin Raza told ANI, “The CBI is an independent agency and it has the right to go anywhere in the country. What Mamata ji is doing I have never seen anything like it in my political career, where she is supporting an IPS officer who is being investigated by the CBI.”

“She allows Rohingyas and foreign infiltrators to stay in the state, people who promote democratic values, be it our chief minister, our national president, they cannot go. She is being supported by people who are also under the CBI’s radar. It is shameful and condemnable. They are making a mockery of the Constitution. If you want to see a situation of emergency anywhere, you can see it in West Bengal,” Raza said.