West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was scheduled to speak at The Oxford Union Debate on Wednesday. The address was to be held virtually, as per West Bengal Secretariat sources. However, it has now emerged that Mamata’s address at the debate has been cancelled. The Oxford Union has sought to postpone it. In the debate, the CM had planned to speak about the schemes of the state government like ‘Kanyashree’, ‘Rupasree’, ‘Krishak Bandhu’ and ‘Duare Bangla’.

The West Bengal home department tweeted about the cancellation a few minutes before the chief minister was supposed to deliver the address. The tweet by the state Home Department read, “While Hon’ ble Chief Minister of West Bengal,  Mamata Banerjee, was scheduled to address the Oxford Union debating society today afternoon, the organizers have suddenly sought postponement and re-scheduling of the programme at the last moment. The request has been made telephonically from the organizers’ end, citing some unforeseen problems, a brief while ago. The programme with Oxford Union today stands cancelled.”

Bengal CM Mamata’s address would have been the first by an Indian woman chief minister at the prestigious event. It was scheduled at around 2:30 pm, but the organizers at around 1.50 pm requested that the programme be rescheduled, stating that “nothing prevails over circumstances sometimes”.

“Banerjee, who became the first Indian woman CM to be invited to address the debate, had received the invitation from the Oxford Union in July,” said an official. Mamata Banerjee, in the same month, had accepted the invitation from the Oxford Union. The official also added, “She will be answering questions from students during the debate, and has already received 600 online queries.” The Union encourages students to write online and submit their Questions by December 1, and subsequently, only a few selected Questions were sent to Banerjee, which she would answer in her speech. Basically, Mamta Banerjee will highlight some of the projects of the state government.  In 2010, when Banerjee was the railway minister, she had received an invitation from Cambridge University to deliver a lecture, but she had declined the invite at that time.

The Oxford Union was founded as a debating society in the early 19th century (1823). The Union has hosted several world leaders and luminaries as speakers, including US presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Regan, British prime-minister Winston Churchill , and Margaret Thatcher. Speakers also include eminent personalities like the Dalai Lama, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, and Mother Teresa who had participated in debates. A few years back, Dr. Shashi Tharoor from Indian National Congress had participated in the Oxford Union debate, arguing in favour of reparations to be paid by colonizing powers, which had attracted a lot of appreciation from around the world.

After deciding to invite the CM, the union had sent a letter to Goutam Sanyal, principal secretary to the chief minister. “I sincerely hope that the Hon’ble Chief Minister will understand, and might honour us with her esteemed presence at the earliest possible convenience to you. With your permission, I will pass your details onto my successor, to whom I hand over this Friday,” Beatrice Barr, president of the OU wrote in her letter to Sanyal.

The author is a student member of Amity center of Happiness