Mamata Banerjee returns to Kolkata, avoids interaction with media at airport

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee returned to Kolkata from her eight-day UK trip on Saturday evening but, unlike her conventional ways, avoided interaction with the mediapersons at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport here.

On arrival in Kolkata, she just waved at the Trinamool Congress activists who assembled outside the airport to greet her, went inside her car, and left the airport.

So naturally, there was no opportunity to seek her reactions to the interruptions during her keynote address at Kellogg College, United Kingdom (UK) by a group of Indians residing there, mainly led by the UK unit of the CPI-M’s student wing, the Students Federation of India (SFI).

However, one of her tour associates said that the Chief Minister was more or less satisfied with her eight-day England trip, and she left in a hurry, probably because she was tired of her long journey first from London to Dubai and finally back to Kolkata via a connecting flight.

In fact, during her England trip, the Chief Minister expressed grief over the absence of a direct flight between London and Kolkata.

Meanwhile, the leadership of CPI-M and the SFI, on Saturday expressed apprehension that student activists of the party in West Bengal might face the wrath here because of the interruptions of the Chief Minister’s speech in London.

The Left leaders have also cautioned that there will be severe protests throughout the state in case there is any attack on a single SFI activist in West Bengal.

“In the past, Trinamool Congress leaders have tried to malign our late leaders and former Chief Ministers Late Jyoti Basu and Late Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Even our veteran leader Biman Bose was maligned again and again by the ruling party leaders. In the UK, our comrades just raised some questions and those made the Chief Minister so irritated. But this time if there is any attack on any of our student activists in West Bengal, there will be massive protests throughout the state,” said the party’s youth leader, Srijan Bhattacharya.

–IANS