- Saturday, April 20, 2024
While Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot cited health reasons, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal boycott the meeting to protest the Modi government’s controversial ordinance to take back Delhi government’s executive control of bureaucracy.
By: Shubham Ghosh
Deep fault lines in India’s politics were exposed once again on Saturday (27) when as many as eight chief ministers skipped a meeting of the NITI Aayog Council presided over by prime minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. It was the eighth council meeting of the Aayog, India’s government policy think tank which Modi had set up nine years ago, which stressed on issues such as health, skill development, women empowerment and infrastructure development with an aim to make India a developed nation by 2047, the centenary year of its Independence.
Ashok Gehlot, the chief minister of the north-western state of Rajasthan and from the opposition Indian National Congress, stayed away from the meeting citing health reasons while Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief minister of the southern and India’s only Left-ruled state of Kerala, did not give any specific reason for not attending the event, reports said.
आज नीति आयोग की बैठक में 8 मुख्यमंत्री नहीं आए। नीति आयोग देश के विकास और योजनाओं के लिए बहुत ही महत्वपूर्ण है। इस बैठक के लिए 100 मुद्दे तय किए गए हैं, अब जो मुख्यमंत्री नहीं आए हैं वो अपने प्रदेश की जनता की आवाज यहां तक नहीं ला रहे हैं। मोदी विरोध में आप कहां तक जाएंगे?
– श्री… pic.twitter.com/iAJMPyHEaN
— BJP (@BJP4India) May 27, 2023
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote to Modi on Friday (26), announcing his plan to boycott the meeting over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led federal government’s recent ordinance to take back the Delhi government’s executive control over bureaucracy that was earlier given to it by the country’s top court on May 11. Kejriwal said “cooperative federalism” in India was turned into a joke and questioned the point in attending the NITI Aayog meeting.
The ordinance brought recently by the BJP-led central government has taken back the elected Delhi government’s executive control over bureaucracy that was earlier given to it by a Supreme Court order on May 11.
Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, who also hails from the Aam Aadmi Party like Kejriwal, also decided to give the meeting a miss saying the Modi government was not paying attention to his state’s interests. He said there was no point in taking part in the meeting until the pending issues are resolved and called the meeting a mere “photo session”.
Three other chief ministers — Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, Nitish Kumar of Bihar and K Chandrasekhar Rao of Telangana — all of whom are known to be fierce Modi critics and are trying to stitch together a grand united opposition front ahead of next year’s general elections, also did not turn up.
Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who otherwise is known to maintain a distance from both BJP’s National Democratic Alliance and the opposition, was also not seen in the meeting and according to his office, he did not attend as he had a prior schedule.
The BJP hit out at the absence of the chief ministers saying they did not bring the voice of the people to a crucial planning meeting where several issues were listed to be discussed.
“Eight Chief Ministers today did not attend the NITI Aayog meeting. NITI Aayog is very important for the development and planning of the country. 100 issues have been fixed for this meeting, and the chief ministers who have not come are not bringing the voice of the people of their state here. How far will you go to protest against Modi?” BJP leader and former federal minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a press conference in Hindi.
Sources in the Modi government said the chief ministers’ decision to boycott the meeting of the NITI Aayog council was equal to boycotting their respective state’s development.
The boycotting of the meeting by eight chief ministers came a day before the inauguration of India’s new parliament building by Modi which is also set to be boycott by a number of opposition parties.
