Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s arrival in Kolkata was delayed by two hours after a severe thunderstorm hit the city and its suburbs around midnight on Friday.
According to airport sources, the private plane carrying the home minister from Delhi was scheduled to land at 11:46 pm. However, the plane had to fly over the airspace of neighboring Nadia and North 24 Parganas districts, where the cold weather caused lightning and heavy rain.
The plane landed at 1:46 a.m. on Saturday. Shah left the airport in a convoy at 2 am for a hotel in the city, where he was received by senior state BJP leaders.
A senior party leader said that Shah left Delhi at 10:46 pm.
The weather delay comes a day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s flight from Andal faced similar conditions. On March 26, her plane was unable to land at Kolkata airport for an hour due to a thunderstorm before weather conditions improved.
On Saturday afternoon, Shah is expected to issue a ‘charge sheet’ against the Trinamool Congress government at a New Town hotel. The document is a compilation of the BJP’s allegations against the TMC ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal.
Shah has made frequent visits to West Bengal over the past two months to lead organizational meetings, public rallies and awareness programmes, including the ‘Poriburton Yatra’, to strengthen the party’s grassroots network and poll strategy.
