On a day when ten Chief Ministers from Opposition-ruled States boycotted the 9th Governing Council Meeting of NITI Aayog on Saturday owing to “political discrimination”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the vision of Viksit Bharat can be realised through Viksit States, and urged each of them to create individual vision for making India developed by 2047.
In his address to Chief Ministers and Lt Governors representing 20 States and 6 Union Territories, Modi tasked the think-tank to prepare an ‘Investment-friendly Charter’ of parameters which would include policies, programmes and processes to be put in place for attracting investments.
The States may be monitored on their achievement in these parameters to promote healthy competition among them for attracting investments, the PM said in his reachout that had an appeal not to miss the decade of change for India.
At the same time, he underscored the importance of law and order, good governance, and infrastructure for attracting investments, rather than just incentives.
Mamata Banerjee walks out
However, the NITI Aayog meeting, as was suspected earlier, turned out to be a battleground for a verbal duel between the Centre and the Opposition-ruled states. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee left the meeting mid-way, alleging “political discrimination” by BJP-ruled NDA government.
The only CM from the non-BJP ruled States to attend the meeting, Banerjee charged that she was allowed to speak only for 5 minutes and her mike was muted. She said, on the contrary, other CMs including from Andhra Pradesh, got enough time to air their views at the meeting. Her allegations were, however, denied by the ruling dispensation.
“I said you (Centre) shouldn’t discriminate against State governments. I wanted to speak, but my mic was muted. I was allowed to speak only for five minutes, while people before me spoke for 10-20 minutes,” Banerjee told reporters after coming out of the meeting held at Rashtrapati Bhavan. “I was the only one from the opposition who was participating but I still was not allowed to speak. This is insulting,” she added.
FM’s counter
Rejecting the Bengal CM’s charges, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who was present at the meeting, said: “Mamata Banerjee attended the NITI Aayog meeting. We all heard her. Every CM was given the allotted time, and that was displayed on the screen, which was present before every table. We could see that two tables have a screen before us. She said in the media that her mic was turned off. That is completely false. Every CM was given their due time to speak,” the FM said while describing Banerjee’s charges as “not true” and “unfortunate”.
Sitharaman, however, said the government was happy that she participated in the meeting to put forth West Bengal’s case. Banerjee, according to the FM, said in the meeting that she spoke for the entire Opposition at the official gathering of the NITI Aayog.
In case, the Bengal CM wanted to speak more she could have sought more time as other CMs did. “But, she chose to use it as an excuse so that she can get out of the meeting,” FM countered Banerjee.
After the meeting was over, NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam told reporters that there were last-minute drop-outs but not all dropped out for boycott reasons. “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…,” he said.