KOLKATA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's programme to address women associated with self-help groups on Thursday morning hit a stumbling block at chief minister Mamata Bannerjee's home turf Bhowanipore after Trinamool Congress supporters stopped BJP workers from holding a screening of the interaction. BJP leaders claimed they had taken permission from Kolkata Police to hold the programme.The Prime Minister's interaction with 1 crore women working with the self-help groups across the country through videoconferencing was launched amid much fanfare. Modi himself tweeted about the programme that could be watched through the NaMo mobile application and on Doordarshan. State BJP leaders organised screening at around 500 locations across Bengal.Kalpana Pandey, who runs a self-help group in Kolkata, was keen on attending the programme at Bhowanipore. "It was disheartening," she said. "I do not have a smartphone and could not see the interaction on phone. We want to expand our business and thought we would learn a thing or two from the PM's interaction." Pandey and her colleagues in the SHG are into garments business.Of the 500 places across the state where the BJP workers planned to screen the interaction, two were in and around Kolkata - at Bhowanipore and Gouranganagar. "There was trouble only in the CM's constituency. It seems they do not even want the people to see what the PM says," state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said."We had set up a pandal on Rammoy Road in Bhawanipore after getting clearance from the police. But when we tried to set up TV sets at the spot, local Trinamool workers stopped us claiming we need to take their permission. They did not even allow us to conduct the programme and forced the decorator to dismount the pandal," said Locket Chatterjee , state president of BJP Mahila Morcha. The Trinamool Councillor of Ward 72, Sandip Bakshi, however, said no disruption was caused by his party workers.At Gauranganagar in Rajarhat, more than a hundred SHG workers gathered to listen to the PM. "There are many who wished to interact with Modiji. We will help the SHGs prepare a video and share it with him," said Manas Bhattacharya, president of the party's Kolkata (north suburban) district.

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