Kolkata: The city will be lit on Diwali night. The chief minister will be on the border.
Suvendu Adhikari will travel to a border outpost at Hingalganj in North 24 Parganas on Sunday, November 8, and spend Diwali with Border Security Force personnel posted along the India-Bangladesh boundary. Director General of Police Siddharth Nath Gupta will accompany him, the chief minister's office said.
Speaking in Kolkata on Saturday, Adhikari said the purpose of the visit was to show solidarity with the security establishment. "Our government is working to improve coordination between the different agencies," he said, adding that the state and the Centre needed to work in closer step on border security.
Several meetings have been held to strengthen the relationship between the BSF and the state police, he said.
Spending Diwali with troops is a practice Prime Minister Narendra Modi established, and chief ministers in several states have since followed it.
Hingalganj sits at the edge of the Sundarbans, a country of rivers and creeks a few kilometres from Bangladesh. Smuggling, infiltration and disputes over fishing rights have kept the area tense for years, and coordination between the district administration and the border force is a standing issue there.
The visit also carries political weight. For a chief minister who took office after a change of government in the assembly election, being seen close to the security agencies matters in how the state's relationship with the Centre is read.
Whether sweets will be distributed to the jawans during the visit was not officially confirmed.