The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday dismissed reports that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was denied permission to visit Chicago to attend the World Hindu Conference.
Addressing the media, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that the government did not receive any request for clearance of her visit. "We did not receive any request for clearance regarding the visit of Ms Mamata Banerjee to Chicago for the event. The reports about the denial of permission are, therefore, not true," he said in response to a question on the reports.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mamata Banerjee had said; "I wanted to go to Chicago. I could not go there because of an unholy conspiracy hatched by certain people. This incident has given me a lot of pain."
She had made the comment at a gathering in Belur Math, the global headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, to mark 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda's historic speech at the Parliament of the World's Religions held in Chicago.
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