Mamata to skip Modi\\\'s swearing-in Monday

Trinamul leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will not attend the swearing-in of Narendra Modi as Indian prime minister on Monday, but send two of her close associates to the event, a state minister announced. However, the opposition CPI-M said no representative from the party’s state unit would attend the ceremony. Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim said Finance Minister Amit Mitra and party’s national general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Mukul Roy would grace the function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan for which Banerjee has been invited. He said Mamata will be preoccupied with the birthday celebrations of rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam May 26 when she would also inaugurate ‘Nazrul Tirtha’ in Kolkata’s north eastern outskirts. Mamata and Modi had engaged in a serial war of words during the Lok Sabha election campaign. Mamata has also not sent any congratulatory messages to Modi who led the BJP to a landslide victory in the polls. Mamata has for years faced attacks from the opposition in West Bengal – which has an estimated 25 percent plus Muslim population - for sending flowers to then Gujarat chief minister Modi on his victory in the 2002 assembly polls, according to a news agency.