Kolkata: NDA presidential nominee Draupadi Murmu was supposed to visit Kolkata on Saturday to meet BJP lawmakers from West Bengal. However, the visit got cancelled in the wake of the one-day national mourning, as a mark of respect to ex-Japanese premier Shinzo Abe. Murmu has been visiting various states to seek support from lawmakers for the July 18 presidential polls.
“As a mark of respect to former Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, one-day national mourning shall be observed on July 9. Therefore, all programs of NDA Presidential Candidate Draupadi Murmu stand cancelled for July 9, 2022,” the Bengal BJP said in a statement. A senior BJP leader said Murmu will 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 the New Town area of Kolkata on Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Murmu’s plans of visiting another eastern state, Sikkim, also got postponed. “Murmu’s Sikkim visit stands postponed in view of the mourning being observed in India as a mark of respect to the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,” senior Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) leader Jacob Khaling Rai told reporters. All arrangements were made by ruling SKM and BJP leaders of Sikkim to receive Murmu for her visit to the state to seek support for her candidature in the upcoming presidential elections, but we came to know that her visit has been postponed, he said.
Shinzo Abe, 67, the longest-serving prime minister of Japan, was assassinated on Friday in the west Japanese town of Nara while he was campaigning for his party.
(With PTI inputs)