Mamata may 'engineer' PM speech, refuses to share platform with Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh

KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has refused to share a common platform along with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in West Bengal's Malda on March 16. State Congress officials also speculate that the chief minister may announce the dates for the panchayat polls a day ahead of the trip, so that the model code of conduct comes into play and prevents the PM and the AICC chief from making any big announcement before the polls.

Trinamool leaders, however, refused to make any comment on the speculation.

Sonia Gandhi and the prime minister are scheduled to come to Malda to inaugurate the Ghani Khan Chowdhury Institute of Engineering & Technology at Narayanpur. Abu Naser Khan Chowdhury, a sitting Congress MLA and brother of Ghani Khan, had met the chief minister personally to invite her to the event. But Banerjee turned down the request. "I wanted the chief minister to be in Malda along with the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi. But she told me that she would not be able to," Abu Naser Khan Chowdhury said on Tuesday.

Banerjee has also instructed two of her ministers from Malda district-Sabitri Mitra and Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury- to boycott the event. "The chief minister will not attend the function as the organisers have not invited two of the ministers from Malda district," Sabitri Mitra told ET on Tuesday.

The engineering college, which was set up at about three years back, has no building of its own. It was operating from a rented house. But the college authorities have constructed a new building at Narayanpur in Malda on a 300 bigha land and the prime minister and AICC chief are coming to inaugurate the building on Saturday.