Kolkata: NDA’s presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu was to visit Kolkata on Saturday to meet BJP MPs from West Bengal. However, his visit was canceled in view of the one-day national mourning in honor of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Murmu is visiting various states to seek support from lawmakers for the presidential election to be held on July 18.
Bengal BJP said, “A day of national mourning will be observed on July 9 in honor of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Therefore, all programs of NDA’s presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu have been canceled till July 9, 2022.” ” a statement. A senior BJP leader said Murmu would be in New Delhi on Saturday. “Murmu’s visit to Kolkata will be rescheduled later,” he said. She was scheduled to meet BJP MPs and MLAs at a hotel in Kolkata’s New Town area on Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Murmu’s plans to visit another eastern state, Sikkim, also got shelved. “Murmu’s visit to Sikkim has been postponed in view of the mourning being observed in India in honor of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,” senior Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) leader Jacob Khaling Rai told reporters. He said the ruling SKM and Sikkim BJP leaders had made all arrangements to receive Murmu to seek support for his candidature in the upcoming presidential elections, but we learned that his visit has been postponed.
Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, 67-year-old Shinzo Abe, was assassinated on Friday in the western Japanese city of Nara while campaigning for his party.
(with PTI inputs)