Arun Jaitley skips Bengal Global Business event

KOLKATA: 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 not-so-good current political relationship between the state and the Centre.

The relationship between West Bengal and the Union government has worsened of late, especially after the arrest of two TMC MPs Tapas Pal and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, in connection with the Rose Valley scam. After that, the state government arrested BJP state leader Jayprakash Majumdar in connection with alleged bribery connection.

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.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, State Finance Minister Amit Mitra and industrialists Sanjiv Goenka, Sajjan Jindal and Kishore Biyani as well as cricketer Sourav Ganguly are present at the inaugural event.

The 2-day Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) is being attended by representatives from over 27 countries and 3,000 overseas delegates.