Smriti Irani’s chopper fails to land in Bengal’s Suri, BJP alleges conspiracy

Kolkata, Jan 23 (IANS) Union Minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani, who was scheduled to address a public meeting at Suri in West Bengal's Birbhum district on Wednesday, could not reach the venue after her chopper failed to land due to lack of daylight, a state BJP leader said, smelling a conspiracy by the state government.

Irani was scheduled to address two public rallies in Jhargram and Suri in place of BJP President Amit Shah after he had to cut short his trip to the state due to bad health.

According to the party sources, Irani left for Suri in her chopper after addressing the rally in Jhargram, but the pilot refused to land fearing there would not be adequate daylight when they would reach the venue.

The BJP claimed that Irani's arrival at Suri was delayed due to the conspiracy of Bengal government which asked the party leadership to arrange landing of Irani's chopper at the Kalaikunda Air Force base in West Midnapore district, nearly 40 km from the venue of her first public meeting in Jhargram.

"It was a conspiracy by the Bengal government... They denied landing permission near the meeting venue and instead asked us to land the chopper at Kalaikunda, which means Irani ji had to get down at West Midnapore and had to travel all the way to Jhargram which is at the end point of Bengal's Jangalmahal area," alleged BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha.

"Due to this conspiracy, she ran short of time to reach the venue in Suri. Irani and party's national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya could not reach and address the people here. But BJP workers are not upset. We have resolved to stand up against this conspiracy. Major national leaders of our party will come here," he said.

Irani is scheduled to address two more BJP rallies in Bengal's South 24 Parganas and Hoogly district on Thursday.