Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari on December 20 morning paid a surprise visit to the state secretariat Nabanna and staged a poster campaign on the "utilisation of central funds allocated to the state government".
Adhikari went to the state secretariat on a day when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party MPs were in New Delhi where she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding the release of dues to the state.
The senior BJP leader, who was accompanied by three party MLAs, entered the state secretariat around 11.40 am, and had no prior appointment with any of the state government officials, a highly-placed source told PTI. However, he had a brief interaction with Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi at his office at Nabanna.
"We came here without an appointment as if we had informed, they would not have allowed us to enter the secretariat. There are preventive orders on gatherings under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in force around Nabanna and because we are law-abiding citizens, only four of our MLAs came here to tell people how this government is depriving them," Adhikari told reporters after coming out of the state secretariat.
Adhikari, a source said, along with other MLAs were seen waiting at the visitors’ room at Nabanna, holding posters elaborating the "allocation of funds to the state by the Centre and how much was spent", before the meeting with the chief secretary.
Security in and around the state secretariat was immediately beefed up after the visit of the BJP leaders, a senior officer of Kolkata Police said.
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