Mamata takes Bengal pride to Rome

Sunando Sarkar | TNN | Sep 5, 2016, ROME: Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee brought Calcutta to Rome on Sunday morning, as the average Roman on the street tried to make sense of a group of 40-odd foreigners singing and marching down the road to the Vatican, where a Macedonian-by-birth and Indian-bychoice nun's canonization was going to take place in a few minutes.

The delegation, also comprising state chief secretary Basudeb Banerjee, principal secretary in the CMO Gautam Sanyal, Rajya Sabha Tri namool leader Derek O'Brien, Lok Sabha Trinamool leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay and singer Usha Uthup, sang songs like `Aguner parash mani chhoao prane' as Italian security personnel ensured they had right of way.

The Italians did not know this, but behind the display of local pride on foreign soil was a well-thought-out plan to pre-empt the appropriation of one of Bengal's icons by the BJP government at the Centre, Trinamool insiders explained.

That Mamata was more than successful was evident a little later when she reached the Vatican and ensconced herself in the middle of a small group wearing her favourite colours, white and blue.

Mamata had stressed repeatedly that she and her entourage were going to the Vatican "at the invitation of the Missionaries of Charity". That Mamata Banerjee had succeeded in making her point clear was evident on Sunday as she sat beside and spoke to Missionaries of Charity head Sister Nirmala, giving the royal ignore to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. The CM later met her Delhi counterpart, Arvind Kejriwal, at a lunch hosted by the archbishop of Calcutta at an Indian restaurant, Kohinoor. Both chief ministers were absent from the dinner and reception hosted by the Indian ambassador on Saturday evening.