The Ministry of External Affairs has justified its decision to deny permission and grant approval to Kerala Tourism Minister Surendran to visit Chengdu in China.

Kadagampalli Rajendran, who is the Minister for Tourism in chief-minister Pinarayai Vijan’s cabinet, was to take part in the general council meeting of the World Tourism Federation from 11-16 September at Chengdu, the capital of South-Western China’s Sichuan Province.

Communist chief-minister Vijayan, who hadn’t been seeing eye-to-eye with the ruling BJP at the Centre and has been wasting no opportunity to criticize it, had earlier expressed his dissatisfaction over the denial of permission by the External Affairs Ministry to Surendran to visit Chengdu, China.

Replying to an RTI query filed by Cochin’s Binu, the Union Ministry of External Affairs has explained that permission was denied and approval was not granted for Surendran’s tour to Chengdu, China as it was strongly felt that the Minister’s trip won’t serve the interest of the country’s welfare.