Mamata to attend President’s G20 dinner in Delhi on September 9

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to attend the dinner hosted for the G20 summit in New Delhi by President of India Droupadi Murmu on September 9.

Apart from Bengal, leaders from several states have been invited to attend the ceremony.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may also attend the dinner. Banerjee has a very good relationship with Hasina so chances of the two meeting after a long gap also cannot be ruled out. The dinner invite that refers to the President as “President of Bharat” instead of India has already sparked a row and the Opposition has been critical of the change claiming that it is aimed to eclipse their two-month-old political alliance called INDIA.

Banerjee is likely to go to Delhi on September 9 and return the next day. On September 12 she is scheduled to leave for Spain to invite investors to the Bengal Global Business Summit scheduled to be held in November.

Banerjee, alluding to the controversy over a G20 dinner invite in the name of ‘President of Bharat’, had on Tuesday asserted that it’s well known that India is Bharat. “I heard that India’s name is being changed. The G20 invite that went out in the name of the honourable president has Bharat written on it. In English, we say India and the Indian Constitution. In Hindi, we say ‘Bharat ka Samvidhan’. We all say Bharat, what is new in this?

“The world knows us as India. What happened suddenly that the name of the country needs to be changed?” she said, addressing a function on Teachers’ Day.

The G20 Summit is being held in Delhi on September 9 and September 10 under India’s presidency and several heads of state from across the world, including US President Joe Biden, are attending the event.