Bolpur, May 21: Bahubali has made way for the chief minister of Bengal.

The Gitanjali auditorium in Santiniketan, which has been running to packed houses of the Prabhas-starrer blockbuster Bahubali: The Conclusion, has been forced to cancel five shows for an administrative meeting of Mamata Banerjee on Monday.

The theatre was taken over by the Birbhum administration yesterday evening. Apart from the five shows of Bahubali, five other shows of two Bengali films have been cancelled.

"We have cancelled the shows between Saturday evening and Monday evening. However, we will try to run the 7pm Bahubali show on Monday if the hall is handed back to us," said Tathagata Singha Roy, the manager of Gitanjali auditorium.

The auditorium is maintained by the Sriniketan Santiniketan Development Authority and has been leased out to Shree Venkatesh Films.

Told about the cancellation of the shows, a senior Trinamul leader laughed and said: "In Bengal, didi is the bahubali and there should be no doubt about it. Look at the recent civic poll results... she won the battle from the hills to the plains. In a way, Bahubali has made way for the bahubali of Bengal."

A notice regarding the shows has been put up at the gate of Gitanjali auditorium, one of the well-known theatres in the district and the few with air-condition facility that people prefer in the sultry summers of Birbhum.

Sources said the chief minister's decision to hold the meeting in Bolpur-Santiniketan was taken at the "last minute" on Friday.

A senior administrative official said: "We came to know about the chief minister's visit on Friday evening. So, we had to make preparations on a war footing. We hurriedly booked Gitanjali and the film shows had to be cancelled as a result."

According to a Gitanjali employee, the theatre stands to lose about Rs 2.5 lakh for the cancelled shows.

Partha Biswas, a private firm employee who had planned to see Bahubali with his family today, said: "I came to buy the tickets and found that the hall is closed for the chief minister's meeting. I will have to watch it another day. But Sunday would have been ideal."

Mamata's decision to hold the meeting in Birbhum and not in Calcutta has prompted the Left to allege that she was trying to "run away" from the protest the Front has lined up tomorrow outside Nabanna.