No nod for RSS' Mohan Bhagwat's event in West Bengal government hall

KOLKATA: The West Bengal government has denied RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat permission to address a meeting at the century old auditorium Mahajati Sadan, saying that the building was up for renovation.

In January, the RSS needed a high court directive to hold a rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, after the state government denied it permission. Bhagwat was scheduled to address a gathering on October 3 on the occasion of Sister Nivedita’s 150th birth anniversary, for which Sister Nivedita Mission Trust had booked the Mahajati Sadan in July and obtained permission. However, the permission was cancelled by the Mahajati Sadan board.

Reacting to the incident, ESS general secretary Jishnu Basu said, “The government had allowed the Jamaat party to hold a protest against the Supreme Court’s verdict on triple talaq in the same auditorium on August 23.

But they cancelled permission for a programme of Sister Nivedita’s birth anniversary on flimsy grounds. The organisers were asked to take permission from police.

Later, the government remembered the January incident when we had to move court to get permission for Mohanji’s public meeting. So, they came up with another excuse.” The government said the auditorium needs to be closed down for 10 days for maintenance and 10 programmes were cancelled.

“We had spent Rs 4 crore to modernise the auditorium. It needs to be maintained too. We have decided to close it down from September 26 to October 6 for maintenance. We have no political intention. Programmes of TMCP (Trinamool Chhatra Parishad) college unions were also cancelled.

We selected this period because during puja days, we generally have less number of bookings,” said Jyotipriya Mallick, a minister and chairman ofMahajati Sadan board.