No car for minister - Krishnendu stuck at NJP

Krishnendu Choudhury plants a sapling
in  Siliguri on Sunday. (Kundan Yolmo)

Siliguri, July 26: Minister Krishnendu Choudhury was stranded at NJP for around 40 minutes this morning as no car was sent by the Darjeeling district administration to pick him up from the station.

The state food processing and horticulture minister got into a police escort car and went to the PWD inspection bungalow in Siliguri, where his stay had been arranged.

Choudhury said he rang up the district magistrate and the Siliguri subdivisional officer (SDO) to seek an explanation about the "harassment" and they had apologised.

A source in the SDO's office said the minister's office sent three letters - one to the Siliguri police commissionerate to arrange for his security, one to the PWD to book the bungalow and the third to the district magistrate's office to send a car to NJP for the minister. Such letters are emailed and faxed.

The source said there may have been a delay in acting on the request as offices are shut on Saturday and Sunday.

Darjeeling district magistrate Anurag Srivastava said: "I regret the inconvenience faced by the minister, who rang me up. I will take up the matter with the protocol officer to find out why such a mistake happened."

When asked if any mail had reached his office, Srivastava said: "There may have been a communication gap."

The minister reached NJP from Malda around 9.30am by the Padatik Express from Malda. "The GRP officers received me at the platform.... To my dismay, no one had turned up to receive me and no car was sent to pick me up. I, along with my security personnel, waited at the station for approximately 40 minutes," he said.

Choudhury wasn't ready to wait longer and took the police pilot car to the PWD bungalow from where he went to attend a tree-planting event.

Before that, he called up the DM and SDO Deepap Priya P. "The two officials said they had not received information about my trip. But I don't understand why there was a miscommunication," he said.