Blood donation camp in Varanasi cancelled

Varanasi, Aug 31: A blood donation camp to be held here on Tuesday has been cancelled suddenly, raising questions as it was to be attended by former general secretary of BJP Sanjay Joshi, who does not share good relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Joshi was to be the chief guest at the camp organised at Jayapur, the village adopted by the Prime Minister in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi.

Joshi is reportedly said to share an uncomfortable relationship with Modi. In an emergency meeting convened last night, the organisers decided to call off the event stating it was "unnecessarily getting dragged into political controversy".

"Jayapur gram pradhan Durgawati Devi's representative Narain Patel called us on phone three days ago saying we should cancel the camp as the village was already organising some event on September one (tomorrow)," claimed Rupesh Pandey, an active member of the organising committee.

"We didn't pay any heed to Patel's words and were going ahead with the blood donation camp in the village. But later too much pressure from various sides in past two days forced us to cancel this event," he added.

When contacted, Jayapur village head Durgawati Devi and his representative remained unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, Joshi, who is currently in Aligarh, said he has been apprised of the cancellation of the event. "I am currently in Aligarh.

I was to catch train from here in the evening for Varanasi but had to cancel my ticket after coming to know in the afternoon that the event has been cancelled," Joshi said over phone.

PTI