Four CMs including KCR to skip NITI Aayog meeting

Sources said Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao who had openly dubbed the NITI Aayog as 'useless', had last attended the Governing Council meeting in 2018

Hyderabad: The Chief Ministers of at least four States including Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao have decided to skip the eighth Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog to be held in Delhi on Saturday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the meeting being organised on the theme of ‘Viksit Bharat @ 2047: Role of Team India’.

While the Prime Minister is the chairman of the Governing Council, with all the Chief Ministers, the Lieutenant Governors of the union Territories, and several union Ministers as members, The eighth Governing Council Meeting is aimed at creating a roadmap for Viksit Bharat, the new poll slogan of the BJP-led union government, by 2047.

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Sources said Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao who had openly dubbed the NITI Aayog as ‘useless’, had last attended the Governing Council meeting in 2018. However, Finance Minister T Harish Rao and other officials from the department represented the State. However, during the recent communique, the Centre is learnt to have insisted that none but the Chief Minister should attend the meeting to be chaired by the Prime Minister.

“As per the instructions, we have prepared a report on the funds due to Telangana and other issues. However, there has been no further communication in this regard ever since the Centre insisted on the participation of the Chief Minister himself,” an official from the Finance department told Telangana Today.

Apart from Chandrashekhar Rao, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann have decided to skip the meeting. They are also not sending their representatives considering the union government’s affirmation that the invite was for the Chief Ministers. While Mamata Banerjee is occupied with prior commitments and is considering the Centre’s diktat as an excuse to prevent the States from raising issues, Kejriwal decided to boycott the NITI Aayog meeting, stating that if “cooperative federalism becomes a joke, then it is not worth to join the meeting”.

Bhagwant Mann also decided to stay away from the NITI Aayog to protest against the Centre for ignoring the interests of Punjab, including withholding Rural Development Fund (RDF) of Rs 4,000 crore, reducing RDF, stopping Mandi tax and delaying or shifting certain sanctioned projects to other states.