File photo of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today denied that she was scheduled to meet US Ambassador Nancy Powell in her office in Kolkata this afternoon, hours after her party's website went public with the information.
"I don't have any appointment with the US Ambassador," Ms Banerjee told reporters, trashing reports of their meeting, flashed earlier in the day by the official website of her party, the Trinamool Congress.
The last display of woman power was in September 2012, when Ambassador Powell visited Kolkata to discuss opportunities to shore up American investment in the state with the Chief Minister.
Earlier that year, Ms Banerjee had met then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in a grand photo-op.
Nancy Powell had on February 13 met Narendra Modi, the BJP's candidate for prime minister, at his residence in Gandhinagar, ending a decade-long US boycott of the Gujarat Chief Minister over the 2002 riots in his state.
The much-watched meeting was described by the US as part of a "concentrated outreach to senior political and business leaders which began in November to highlight the US-India relationship."
The US Ambassador is in the state capital today, and met West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan at noon.