Mamata Banerjee has claimed that the Central Government has denied her permission to attend a world event at Rome which is supposed to be attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Pope Francis as well. The West Bengal Chief Minister claimed that she was told it isn’t proper for a Chief Minister to visit.
There was a meeting on world peace in Rome,where I was invited. German Chancellor, Pope (Francis) are also supposed to attend. Italy had given special permission for me to attend, yet Centre denied clearance, saying it wasn’t right for CM: WB CM Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata pic.twitter.com/LFvePbBnr9
— ANI (@ANI) September 25, 2021
Mamata Banerjee also accused Narendra Modi of being jealous of her. “You keep talking about Hindus, I am also a Hindu woman, why did you not allow me? You are totally jealous,” She said referring to Narendra Modi.
You will not be able to stop me. I am not eager to visit foreign countries, but this was about the respect of the nation. You (PM Modi) keep talking about Hindus, I am also a Hindu woman, why did you not allow me? You are totally jealous: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee pic.twitter.com/buvJkM0Te8
— ANI (@ANI) September 25, 2021
Trinamool spokesperson Debangshu Dev has also jumped into it to accuse the Central Government of stopping Mamata Banerjee’s visit.
Central government denied permission for Didi’s Rome trip!
— Debangshu Bhattacharya Dev (@ItsYourDev) September 25, 2021
Previously they’ve cancelled the permission of China trip too. We accepted that decision with keeping international relations and India’s interests in mind.
Now why Italy Modi ji? What is your problem with Bengal? Chi!
The event Banerjee was referring to is an event for World Peace supposedly being organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio. Earlier in August, it was reported that Banerjee had been invited to the event along with Angela Merkel and Pope Francis, to be hosted in Rome on the 6th and 7th of October.
However, the suspicious bit about the whole affair is that there is hardly any coverage of the matter in western media. When we checked the website of the organisation, we could not find any reference to any such event or to Mamata Banerjee herself.
A Google search reveals that there’s no relevant search result for Mamata Banerjee on the website.
Since it is an event expected to be attended by Angela Merkel and Pope Francis, it is reasonable to expect that western media would report the development on their presence. However, there is no such news reports on the matter.
On Twitter, when one searches with the keywords “Angela Merkel sant’egidio”, the top results are from years prior and the latest results are all related to claims by Mamata Banerjee.
Furthermore, we have sent several emails to the Community of Sant’Egidio seeing confirmation of the matter but have not received any replies from them over the same. Thus, we see a pattern of extremely suspicious events here.
We have an obscure organisation, that supposedly has a very close relationship with Pope Francis, inviting an Indian Chief Minister for an obscure event that the German Chancellor and the Pope is expected to attend. Second, there does not appear to be any independent confirmation of the event, and the Indian media has simply reproduced Banerjee’s claims without verification.
Thirdly, for such a high profile event, there is nonexistent coverage of it in the western media. Fourthly, there is no indication of any such event on the website of the Community of Sant’Egidio, the group that supposedly invited Mamata Banerjee. Fifth, our attempts to seek some confirmation of the event from the organisers have received no response at all.
All of this leads us to question the authenticity of the event, if any such event is happening at all. Thus, it cannot be ruled out that Mamata Banerjee is accusing the Modi Government of preventing her visit in order to avoid admitting that she fell for an elaborate hoax.
It certainly will not be the first time that the Trinamool Congress has fallen for a hoax. The party had claimed that a group affiliated to the United Nations had congratulated the West Bengal Chief Minister for her governance during the Covid-19 pandemic. After our investigation that exposed the dubious nature of the group, Trinamool Congress was forced to remove the tweet that boasted of the endorsement.
While a verdict cannot be passed regarding the Sant’Egidio event as of yet, it remains to be seen whether such an event actually takes place of the 6th and 7th of October.
