Six chief ministers from states not controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will not attend the 8th governing council meeting of Niti Aayog on Saturday, joining the 21 opposition parties that have chosen to skip the May 28 opening of the new Parliament building in New Delhi.
The council is made up of state chief ministers and lieutenant governors (LGs) of union territories and is presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who also serves as the chairman of Niti Aayog. According to government think tank officials, the commission will discuss the road map for a “Developed India” in eight key areas, including MSMEs, infrastructure and investment, regulatory simplification, women’s empowerment, health and nutrition, skill development, and social infrastructure.
Leaders not attending the meeting
Chief Ministers from the Aam Aadmi Party Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, Bhagwant Mann of Punjab, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, Nitish Kumar of Bihar, K Chandrashekar Rao of Telangana, Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and MK Stalin of Tamil Nadu, representing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, will all be missing from the meeting.
Chief ministers from the Congress party, which directly controls four states, are expected to attend the meeting.
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Reasons behind not attending the meeting
In a letter to the prime minister on Friday, Kejriwal declared that he was “boycotting” the gathering in protest of the “undemocratic and unconstitutional” May 19 ordinance, which had the effect of overturning a Supreme Court decision that had granted control of services to the elected government, with the exception of police, public order, and land. The ordinance had given the Centre under the LG back command of the services in the capital.
“The people of Delhi prevailed in the Supreme Court after an eight-year battle, and in just eight days, you passed an ordinance to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision. Therefore, the elected government chosen by the people is powerless to act if any Delhi government official fails to report for duty. What kind of government would that be? It is rendered entirely helpless,” Kejriwal wrote in the letter.
According to his writing, the action represented a “brazen disregard” for the Constitution and a disdain for cooperative federalism. “Some say we shouldn’t go to the NITI Aayog meeting tomorrow. I’m unable to attend the meeting tomorrow as a result,” the Delhi CM continued.
Bhagwant Mann announced that he would not attend the meeting of the governing council due to the Union government’s disregard for issues affecting farmers. Malvinder Singh Kang, the chief spokesperson for the AAP in Punjab, defended the choice by pointing to problems like the transfer of approved projects to other states and the withholding of RDF in the amount of 4,000 crores, as well as the reduction in RDF rate, the end of the mandi tax, and the delayed payment of GST compensation.
Trinamool Congress leaders in West Bengal announced that Mamata Banerjee will not attend the meeting. They claimed, however, that she suggested Chandrima Bhattacharya, the finance minister, and HK Dwivedi, the chief secretary, as her representatives. Only chief ministers, however, could attend, the Centre retorted.
“Niti Aayog, which replaced the Planning Commission, is a hazy organization. Can anyone recall the decisions made at the most recent Niti Aayog meeting and what was actually done? The Centre doesn’t consult the states before making any decisions,” said Jay Mazumdar, vice president of the TMC.
Senior members of the Bihar cabinet in Patna reported that Nitish Kumar had stated that he would be unable to attend due to “prior commitments” and that they had not yet heard from the Union government as to whether someone else could take his place. According to Bihar’s finance minister, Vijay Kumar Chowdhary, “The state government has written a letter to the Government of India requesting to deputize some senior minister in his place, but we are yet to receive any response.”
Chandrasekhar Rao, the chief minister of Telangana and president of the Bharat Rashtra Samiti, will not attend the meeting, according to representatives of the Telangana Chief Minister’s office, because he has a scheduled meeting with Arvind Kejriwal in Hyderabad on Saturday. The purpose of this meeting is to gain the support of opposition party leaders in Kejriwal’s campaign to stop the services ordinance from becoming a bill in Parliament.
Chief Minister MK Stalin has been informed by Tamil Nadu officials that he will not be attending the meeting because he is currently on a three-day trip to Singapore and Japan.
