The abrupt cancellation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Malda in North Bengal on Sunday morning was due to bad weather, senior officials said denying that there was a security angle to it. The Prime Minister, who addressed the convocation of the Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan on Saturday, had stayed back in Kolkata for his trip to Malda on Sunday where he was to visit the grave of late Congress strongman A B A Ghani Khan Choudhury and his ancestral home. He was to fly to Purnea in an aircraft and then make the trip to Malda in a chopper. West Bengal Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb said that the Prime Minister had left for Delhi as "the weather was bad at Purnea." The district administration of Malda, which borders Bangladesh, however, scotched speculation that the visit had been cancelled due to a security threat. Malda District Magistrate Sridhar Ghosh said that he had been officially informed about the cancellation due to zero visibility at Purnea which had been enveloped by dense fog. "There was no such report (about any security threat)", he said. The district magistrate's view was also corroborated by Gourab Dutta, Inspector General of Police (Intelligence), North Bengal, who said they had no such information (about any security threat). However, security had been tightened in the district town, decked up with Congress flags, ahead of the Prime Minister's arrival. Abu Hasan Khan Choudhury, Congress MP and brother of late Ghani Khan Choudhury, said he and his family members were crestfallen following the cancellation of the Prime Minister's visit to Malda. "We had been preparing for this for three weeks now. The Congressmen here are also greatly disappointed," he said. Choudhury said that he had pleaded with the Prime Minister earlier that he should contest the next Lok Sabha election from the newly created Malda North constituency. "This is known to be a Congress stronghold and if the Prime Minister chooses to contest from Malda North it would be a boon for the party in the neighbouring constituencies as well," he said. Choudhury's family had laid out a large spread of fish pulao, kashmiri aloo dum, matar paneer and hilsa from the Ganges, specially procured from Farakka, along with several other delicacies for the Prime Minister. The MP said Singh was originally scheduled to lay the foundation of a centrally funded Engineering and Technical Institute at Malda which had been put off in view of code of conduct in force ahead of the byelection to Sujapur assembly seat on December 27.
