Mohan Bhagwat's Kolkata programme to go ahead as proposed: RSS

New Delhi: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's programme in Kolkata will go ahead as per schedule, despite the state government cancelling permission for the venue citing security reasons, the saffron body said Monday.

The venue, Mahajati Sadan, had been booked for celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of one of Swami Vivekananda's disciples Sister Nivedita for which the RSS chief had been invited. The booking was cancelled last week.

"We will organise the programme as per schedule on October 3 and have a booked a bigger hall this time to organise it on a larger scale. The state government tried to stop it but they did not succeed," Jishnu Basu, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) West Bengal General Secretary told PTI.

The state government had said the booking was cancelled due to "safety and security reasons" as the auditorium would be under renovation and repair around that time.

A spokesman for the Sister Nivedita 150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations Committee, which had booked Mahajati Sadan for the programme, claimed that the auditorium authorities had accepted the booking in June.

The TMC government in the state and BJP are at loggerheads with the latter trying to make inroads into the Mamata Banerjee-led party's bastion.