Mamata Banerjee on Monday called off her Delhi visit at the eleventh hour citing her state budget-related responsibilities, surprising many even in her party and government for she knew of the budget session’s schedule last week when she planned the two-day trip.

At a hurriedly convened media briefing, the chief minister said she had cancelled her Delhi trip, whose primary objective was to attend a meeting called by the Centre to discuss its contentious one-nation-one-election policy.

“The budget will be presented in the Assembly on February 8, and only two days remain in between. Given that emergency situation, I am calling off the trip,” a visibly grim Mamata told journalists at Nabanna, where she arrived around midday.

By then, her security detail had already reached Delhi. Airport sources confirmed that the cancellation was indeed done at the last minute.

“Initially, she was to fly out at 4pm.... At 4.30pm, the pilot informed air traffic control that the (chartered) flight would take off at 5pm and sought clearance. At 5.30pm, the airport authorities were informed that the aircraft would not fly today,” a source said.

Mamata had a busy day at Nabanna, chairing a 20-minute cabinet meeting from around 3pm, after which she held a meeting with a newly formed monitoring committee to oversee the Jal Jeevan Mission, under which 1.77 lakh rural households are to get piped water.

She then held discussions with chief secretary B.P. Gopalika and a few other senior officials.

“It only came to light at around 4pm that she wasn’t going,” a source said.

It was decided around 4.40pm that Mamata would personally announce the decision, and a one-sided briefing took place at about 5.30pm.

At the briefing, she said she had spoken at length to former President Ram Nath Kovind, head of the high-level committee that is examining the concurrent-polls proposal, informing him of her inability to attend. Last month, she had written a lengthy letter to the committee, opposing the policy.

“I asked him (Kovind) if it was okay to send our MPs, Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Kalyan Banerjee, to represent us instead. He said it would be all right,” Mamata said before leaving hurriedly, refusing to take questions.

Trinamul sources said the budget pretext did not make sense, although that was the line all the spokespersons were expected to parrot.

“Everyone knew when the budget session would take place. The budget is being presented on Thursday.... There is nothing in the budget that requires her physical presence in Calcutta. There is something else to it (cancellation of the trip),” a source said.

Several Trinamul insiders said that questions had been raised over making the trip simply to attend the “pointless” meeting of the BJP’s controversial election project, more so amid all the tension in the INDIA combine involving Mamata.

“At the end of the day, it was bad optics. She realised that,” a party source said.

He added: “She was not going to meet Sonia Gandhi. Instead, she would have met some other INDIA dissidents, such as (AAP chief) Arvind Kejriwal…. More questions would have been raised about her credibility as an anti-BJP force, with the CPM and the (state) Congress always looking to fish in muddied political waters.”

Several members of the Trinamul old guard cited another possible reason: the ongoing young-versus-old power struggle in the party, with Mamata’s nephew and heir apparent Abhishek Banerjee leading the charge for the younger brigade.

Mamata has in recent years made it a routine to stay at Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek’s 183 South Avenue flat during her Delhi visits. Abhishek was in Delhi these past few days, staying away controversially from Trinamul’s Calcutta dharna against the Centre’s decisions.

“It remained unclear in the afternoon, when she made the decision, whether he would return tonight or later. Given their current cold war, she decided against sharing a roof with him,” a party senior said.

“Arrangements had also been made at the new Banga Bhavan, but she did not want to deviate from the usual because it would have set tongues wagging further.”

Another Trinamul insider, a self-proclaimed fence-sitter between the old and the new, said Mamata didn’t want to leave town amid the confusion in the party ranks.

He said there was increasing disquiet in the party over the damage being caused by the prolonged succession strife, which was holding back a full-fledged plunge into election preparations.

The state Congress accused Mamata of not wanting to be seen hobnobbing with INDIA partners amid the ongoing Parliament session and the protest programmes lined up by the national Opposition.

“What if Didi’s dadas (Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah) get displeased with her? After such a good performance by her in these past few days to sabotage INDIA from within, she did not want to risk that,” the Congress’s chief spokesperson for Bengal, Soumya Aich Roy, said.

He said: “It’s laughable, this budget excuse.”

The CPM virtually echoed the Congress, saying Mamata’s “stellar show” in trying to weaken INDIA as the BJP’s “Trojan horse” had impressed her “Delhi bosses” enough, ruling out the need for an immediate face-to-face.

“The ‘setting’ need not be consolidated further at the moment; she has been doing well enough as their agent in the INDIA space,” said CPM central committee member Sujan Chakraborty.

Sources in the state BJP, which sent Mamata’s bete noire Suvendu Adhikari to Delhi on Sunday night to set the stage for fierce belligerence as soon as she arrived, had their own take.

“Maybe she was going to beg and plead with the top brass against the central probe agencies arresting bhaipo (Abhishek), and called off the visit realising Modiji would not give her time. Amitji almost never meets her anyway,” a state BJP functionary said.

In Delhi, Adhikari met Shah, Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar (a former Bengal governor), and Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

He later told a news conference that he had told Sitharaman not to release any funds without an audit to Bengal by way of the GST share devolution. He claimed there would be “action” as an outcome of his meeting with Shah.