NITI Aayog Meeting: Chief Ministers and other constitutional heads of 26 states and UTs attended the 9th Governing Council Meeting of the government think tank NITI Aayog, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. A total of 10 invitees remained absent from the annual gathering, the Chief Executive Officer BVR Subrahmanyam said. Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Puducherry remained absent from the meeting, the CEO added.
The CEO further said that not all the absentees dropped out for boycott reasons. He said the meeting witnessed some last-minute dropouts, such as Jharkhand and Puducherry. Notably, many states, including Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, had boycotted the meeting leveling allegations of stepmotherly treatment in the Union Budget 2024.
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"We had a lot of last-minute dropouts, I have speeches of some states who had not participated- Jharkhand and Puducherry. Not all have dropped out for boycott reasons. For those who did not participate, I always say that it is their loss. The room is richer if they are there both for us and for them. Nobody is going to be excluded if they are not going to participate," BVR Subrahmanyam, NITI Aayog CEO said in a post-meet press conference.
Clearing the air over West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee's allegations that her mic was muted and she wasn't allowed to speak for as much time as others, the CEO denied anything like that happening.
"The chief minister of West Bengal was present. The chief minister of West Bengal had requested to be given a turn before lunchtime. I'm just putting facts on the ground, no interpretations. It was a very clear request from their side because normally we would have gone alphabetically. So it begins with Andhra Pradesh, then Arunachal Pradesh...We adjusted and the Defence Minister called her in just before Gujarat. So she made her statement," he said.
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Mamata Banerjee spoke for the allotted time of seven minutes and then left as she had a Kolkata flight to board, while the chief secretary remained in the meeting, Subrahmanyam added.
"Every chief minister is allotted seven minutes and there's just a clock on top of the screen which tells you the time that is remaining. So it goes from seven to six to five to four to three. At the end of that, it shows zero. Zero. Nothing else. Nothing else has happened other than that...Then she said look, I would have liked to speak for more time, but I'll not speak anymore. That was it. There was nothing more. We all heard. She made her points and we respectfully heard and noted points, which will be reflected in a minute...Just to mention the fact the chief secretary continued to attend, and he was in the room even after she left because she had to catch a flight to Calcutta..." he said.