Trinamul Congress is scared of the BJP and its national president Amit Shah and hence the state government did not allow us to hold Mr Shah’s meeting at the state-run Netaji Indoor stadium, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said on Thursday. He also charged the state government of resorting to “vendetta politics”.

Mr Ghosh said that Mr Shah will come to join a meeting with the BJP’s youth and students’ wings before the panchayat election so the state BJP had urged the authorities of the state youth and sports department to hold a meeting of Amit Shah on 9 April at the auditorium of the Netaji Indoor Stadium.

Mr Ghosh also said that the state government’s excuses for preventing major rallies of the RSS and BJPs in a bid to prevent the rise of the BJP is undemocratic.

“We may seek legal opinion to fight against the state government over this issue. It seems the state government will not give us any stadium or auditorium hall to hold our programme,” he said.

BJP’s state president also alleged that the authority of the auditorium made a silly excuse not to organise Mr Shah’s programme there.

“The Netaji Indoor stadium auditorium, which is being run by the youth affairs department, rejected our application to organise such meeting there by citing a reason that a sports event will be organised on that day and sent a letter to our state headquarters on this matter.

This is nothing new. The state government had previously too restored to such vendetta politics with us to stop our political programme. Earlier the state government had also denied permission to hold rally,” he said.

In response, senior Trinamul Congress leader and party’s secretary general Partha Chatterjee said the allegation of “vendetta politics” was baseless.

Mr Ghosh said the incident had brought back memories of a similar standoff between the party and the state administration in September last year when Mr Shah was to address a rally at the same venue. It was later cancelled at the last moment as the BJP was denied permission.

A few months ago, the booking was cancelled at the Mahajati Sadan for organising the RSS chief’s programme. The next day the state BJP had been denied permission to hold its party’s meeting at Netaji Indoor Stadium on the grounds of repairing work.

BJP national president Amit Shah was going to address the rally. He had come to the city and stayed from 10 to 13 September last year.