No invitation for Omar, Mamata not attending

‘Let me say this here rather than individually to those asking - no, I haven’t received THE invitation,’ he wrote on microblogging site Twitter. 

Omar, who exchanged bitter words with Modi during the campaign for Lok Sabha poll, said he cannot consider an invitation that has not been extended to him. ‘Can’t consider what hasn’t arrived,’ he added.

Meanwhile, ending the suspense, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Friday decided to send the state’s finance minister Amit Mitra and party general secretary Mukul Roy to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Modi.

‘A letter from PM-designate Narendra Modi to the chief minister inviting her to attend the swearing-in reached the state secretariat today. Amit Mitra and Mukul Roy will attend the swearing-in on behalf of the chief minister since she has a pre-scheduled programme on that day to celebrate poet Kazi Nazrul Islam’s birth anniversary’, Bengal’s urban development minister Firhad Hakim told reporters. 

In his letter to Banerjee, Modi wrote the ‘people of India have given me an opportunity to serve the country as prime minister. The swearing-in ceremony has been organized at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on 26 May at 6pm.’ 

‘I am writing this to cordially invite you to the swearing-in ceremony. This is also an occasion for me to seek your blessings and good wishes. I will be grateful for early confirmation so that necessary arrangements can be made,’ Modi said in his letter. 

Banerjee, whose party won 34 seats in the Lok Sabha, had a vitriolic war of words with Modi on the issue of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh during campaigning for the Lok Sabha election.