Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu boycotted the Niti Aayog meeting held at New Delhi on Saturday along with INDIA bloc opposition party CMs – Tamilnadu CM MK Stalin (Tamilnadu), Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, Karnataka CM Siddarmaiah, Telanagna CM Reventh Reddy and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren.
“As many as 10 states and UTs did not participate in the ninth Governing Council meeting of the NITI Aayog which was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday in New Delhi and the meeting was attended by 26 participants including Chief Ministers and Lt Governors of UTs”, said Niti Aayog CEO BVR Subramanian.
“The absentees were Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Puducherry; “It is their loss if they did not participate,” he added.
The only opposition CM West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Who attended the meeting saying, “I would be the voice of the opposition in the meeting, also walked away from the meeting and said, I was given very little time to speak when other CMs were given enough time and my mike was muted .”
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address at the meeting, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Suman Bery said that he wanted the states to compete for FDI so that investments could reach all the states, especially those that are less successful.
The Opposition parties had announced to boycott the meeting saying, “The 2024 Union Budget presented by the Finance Minister seems like a vengeful act against the states and people who supported opposition candidates in the parliamentary election and rejected BJP”.
The Leader of Opposition in HP Assembly Jai Ram Thakur has termed the decision of HP CM to boycott the Niti Aayog meeting as “unfortunate and against the interests of the state.”
