Kolkata: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who was scheduled to fly to Delhi on Monday to attend a meeting on One Nation One Election on Tuesday, cancelled her trip at the last moment citing the state budget.

Meanwhile, Suvendu Adhikari, BJP legislator and leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly, who met Nirmala Sitharaman Union finance minister in Delhi on Monday, hinted that the centre could send a team to West Bengal to probe into allegations that the state administration was using funds under the 15th finance commission to pay electricity bills of state government buildings.

Banerjee, on her part, said she was skipping the Delhi tour because of the state’s budget session.

“I have cancelled my Delhi trip because the state budget is scheduled on February 8. Today we held a cabinet meeting to discuss budget-related issues. As I have just two days in hand and it is an emergency situation, I have cancelled in the trip,” she said.

On Friday, Banerjee had said that she would be going to Delhi on February 5. She was scheduled to attend a meeting of the committee on ‘One Nation, One Election’ headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind and return to Kolkata on January 6.

Banerjee had earlier rejected the concept of ‘One Nation One Election’ saying that even though the phrase sounded dramatic and sensational, it was against the country’s federal structure. In January, the TMC chief wrote a letter to Niten Chandra, secretary of the high-level committee, to flag her concerns.

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“I called Kovind ji multiple times before cancelling my trip. He was out of station and hence we couldn’t speak. But I managed to speak to him on Monday afternoon. I requested him if I can send two TMC MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Kalyan Banerjee to attend the meeting on Tuesday. He welcomed the proposal”

Adhikari, meanwhile, posted on X handle that he met Jagdeep Dhankhar, Vice President of India, Union home minister Amit Shah and Nirmala Sitharaman, union finance minister.

“I will not reveal what discussions I had with the Union home minister. You will get to know when the actions follow,” he told reporters after meeting Shah at the latter’s parliament office.

A senior BJP leader, however, said that the Adhikari discussed issues related to the BJP’s battleplan for the state ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Shah had cancelled his two-day visit to West Bengal in the last week of January amid political turmoil in Bihar.

“I have lodged some complaints with Sitharaman ji against the state administration. I urged the Union finance minister to initiate a probe into the alleged irregularities flagged by the. There should be some check CAG reports to bring in financial discipline. The state government is using central funds to pay electricity bills of its offices,” Adhikari said adding that the Union minister has assured to send a probe team.

The state finance audit report for 2020-21 compiled by the CAG stated that there was delay in the submission of utilisation certificates of 2,29,099 crore since 2002-03 to 2020-21. The TMC government came to power in 2011.

Banerjee has already refuted the charges made in the report and has sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The concerned departments of the state government had submitted utilization certificates on time to the respective ministries of the Union government in the prescribed format against the allocations/sanctions made under different schemes by the centre,” Banerjee wrote in her letter to Modi on Friday.