Kolkata: For a popular leader like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, walking 7km is just another day in the office, probably one among the hundreds of processions that she had led in her life.
However, on Monday the venue moved to central London, where Mamata took an impromptu walk — apparently to beat the jet lag.
After breakfast at the St James Court — where Mamata is staying during her 5-day visit to London — she decided to take a walk around the streets of the imperial city.
The 7-km walk was done in her inimitable style ——— wearing rubber sandals, cotton sari and an ordinary shawl to beat the weather.
“The primary objective of the visit is to understand urban development and emulate the same in Kolkata. There is no better way to understand a city than to walk around. Madam showed us the way,” said a senior official accompanying her.
Even the mayor of Kolkata, Sovan Chatterjee, was taken by surprise when she received a text message: “Please look around London, and see if we can take ideas for the city of Kolkata back with us..
Mamata is known to walk very fast and this time industrialists accompanying her got a taste of the same.
“She really walks fast. By the time we had covered few hundred metres she was almost a kilometre ahead,” said a city-based realtor accompanying the chief minister.
The walk reportedly ended at a coffee shop, which apparently impressed Mamata who hoped to set up many such facilities in Kolkata.
She also went to Buckingham Palace on her first day of the visit at the invitation of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who hosted her for evening tea.
However, she could not meet British Prime Minister David Cameron who had written a personal note of apology to the chief minister for the same.
