Amit Shah’s visit to Odisha postponed

Bhubaneswar: Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s scheduled two-day visit to Odisha from Saturday has been postponed after the Centre declared a seven-day mourning in honour of former prime minister Manmohan Singh, a BJP leader said here.

Shah was scheduled to attend a programme of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and hold a meeting with BJP MPs, MLAs and workers at an event in Kalinga Stadium here on December 29 along with some other programmes.

“The visit of the Union Home Minister has been postponed due to the demise of former prime minister Manmohan Singh,” BJP’s Jajpur MP Rabindra Na-rayan Behera said on Friday.

The Central government has declared a seven-day mourning in memory of Singh, who died on Thursday night. The government programmes, especially festivals scheduled for the seven days, have been cancelled, the BJP leader said.

Singh, the architect of India’s economic reforms, died in New Delhi at the age of 92. He was the prime minister during 2004-14.