Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today skipped the inauguration of the third edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit being held in Kolkata amid strained relationship between the state and the Centre.
Arun Jaitley was scheduled to attend the event but the BJP is believed to have asked him to stay away.
The relationship between West Bengal and the Union government has worsened of late, especially after the arrest of two Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs Tapas Pal and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, in connection with the Rose Valley scam. After that, the state government arrested BJP state leader Jayprakash Majumdar in connection with alleged bribery.
President Pranab Mukherjee, Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, state Finance minister Amit Mitra and industrialists Sanjiv Goenka, Sajjan Jindal and Kishore Biyani as well as cricketer Sourav Ganguly are present at the inaugural event.
The two-day Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) is being attended by representatives from over 27 countries and 3,000 overseas delegates.
