‘Was stopped from speaking’: Mamata Banerjee walks out of NITI Aayog meet, PIB calls claim ‘misleading’

Banerjee had alleged that her mike was cut off in five minutes while CMs from other states were allowed to speak for much longer.

“I have come out boycotting the meeting. Chandrababu Naidu was given 20 minutes to speak, CMs of Assam, Goa, Chhattisgarh spoke for 10-12 minutes. I was stopped from speaking after just five minutes. This is unfair,” she said.

“I came alone from the Opposition but they stopped me in 5 minutes. This is an insult. I will not attend any further meetings,” Banerjee said while addressing reporters outside the South Avenue-side gate of the Rashtrapati Bhavan where the meeting is taking place. She further said that “no government works like this” and that when a government is in power, it has to take care of everyone.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the meeting that India needs to make its policies “conducive for international investments”. “This decade is of changes, technological & geo-political, and also of opportunities. India should grab these opportunities and make our policies conducive for international investments. This is the stepping stone for progress to make India a developed nation,” Modi said, as quoted by NITI Aayog in a post on X.

Modi, who chairs the NITI Aayog, led discussions on the approach paper for the vision document for Viksit Bharat @2047, which aims to transform India into a $30 trillion economy by 2047. The meeting, being held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre, brings together Chief Ministers, Lieutenant Governors, Union Ministers, and NITI Aayog officials.

Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, who is among several INDIA bloc leaders boycotting the meeting, posted on X today that the Union budget presented last week in Parliament had a “discriminatory attitude towards Tamil Nadu”.

Bihar CM and NDA partner Nitish Kumar was also not present at the meeting.

The Governing Council (GC) of the NITI Aayog convened here on Saturday for its ninth meeting since the inception of the government’s apex think tank, marking the first such gathering following the May general elections and subsequent reconstitution of the GC, which now includes Union ministers from BJP’s NDA allies as special invitees.

What is the agenda of the meeting?

According to an official release, “The meeting aims to foster participative governance and collaboration between the Centre and State Governments, enhancing the quality of life for both rural and urban populations by strengthening the delivery mechanisms of government interventions. The meeting will also see detailed deliberations on the role of states in achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat @2047.” Moreover, the meeting will build on the recommendations of the 3rd National Conference of Chief Secretaries held in December, 2023, during which five themes were discussed under the overarching theme of ‘Ease of Living’– drinking water, electricity, health, schooling, and land and property.

Notably absent are several chief ministers from the opposition INDIA bloc, including Tamil Nadu’s MK Stalin (DMK), Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan (CPI-M), Punjab’s Bhagwant Mann (AAP), and all three Congress CMs – Karnataka’s Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, and Telangana’s Revanth Reddy. They cited a “discriminatory Union budget” as one of their reasons for boycotting the meeting. West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee (TMC) and Jharkhand’s Hemant Soren (JMM) had, however, confirmed their attendance.