Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) on Saturday declared that he will “stay away” from Prime Minister Narendra Modi-chaired NITI Aayog Governing Council meeting to be held on Sunday here to strongly protest the Centre “discriminating against the States”, “micro-managing schemes, giving complete go by to State-specific needs” and because there is “no planning and cooperative federalism”.
Terming his decision as “unfortunate”, the NITI Aayog responded swiftly dishing out figures to counter his claims.
KCR’s announcement came even as reports about Bihar Chief Minister and president of JD(U), an ally of BJP, Nitish Kumar, also not attending the meeting have come. Interestingly, while West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had been staying away from the PM Modi-chaired NITI Aayog meetings earlier, this time round she is not only attending it but has landed in Delhi a couple of days in advance. Both KCR and Mamata have been separately making efforts to forge an Opposition unity to take on Modi.
In a strongly-worded letter to the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister expressed anguish against the Centre for not giving States “flexibility to design and modify schemes based on their needs and conditions to ensure maximum benefit to people”. His protest, he said, was against the “present trend of Central Government to discriminate against the States and not treating them as equal partners”.
The Niti Aayog countered saying, “A number of measures are already in place to work closely with States. Last year, over 30 meetings were held with CMs. Delegation also met with Telangana CM in Hyderabad last year. Recently, despite requests for a meeting, the CM did not respond”.
It further said, “Over the last 4 years, the GoI allocated Rs 3982 core under Jal Jeevan Mission for State of Telangana. But the State chose to draw only Rs 200 cr. In addition, Rs 1195 cr was released to Telangana under PMKSY-AIBP-CADWM during 2014-2015 to 2021-2022.”
The Governing Council is a forum where highest political leadership deliberate on development-related issues and agree on appropriate solutions for national development, it further said.
KCR pointed out that “recent unpleasant happenings have given rise to an inescapable realisation that the federal structure of India is being systematically eroded by some deliberate actions by the Government of India”.
KCR further said such developments are discouraging States like Telangana. “The blatant discrimination against some States even in the legitimate functions assigned to them in the Constitution leaves much to be desired,” KCR wrote.
Alleging that the Centre ignored an important recommendation put forward by the group of Chief Ministers constituted by the NITI Aayog, KCR expressed his anguish stating that the Centre has turned a blind eye towards the State-specific needs.
“In the beginning, NITI Aayog had constituted a group of Chief Ministers to give recommendations on developmental issues. A major recommendation of the group was that in respect of the Central sector schemes, States should be given flexibility to modify the schemes based on their needs and conditions to ensure maximum benefit to the people…
“With much pain and anguish, let me point out that such an important recommendation has been kept aside and on the contrary, I find the Centre micro-managing the schemes, giving a complete go by to State-specific needs which are best left to individual States,” KCR’s letter stated
The turf war for votes in Telangana is the political reason for KCR boycotting the NITI Aayog meet as he wants to counter the BJP from expanding its base in his State with his eye firmly on the December 2023 Assembly polls in the State.
As for Nitish, he had skipped the new President Droupadi Murmu’s swearing-in and the PM’s farewell dinner for outgoing President Ramnath Kovind too. On July 17, Nitish had skipped a meeting of Chief Ministers called by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on matters concerning the national flag.
The Bihar CM, it is learnt, has cited his COVID-19 recovery behind his latest decision and offered to send the Deputy CM for the event but was told that the meeting was strictly for Chief Ministers only.
Nitish would, however, be holding his “Janata darbar” in Patna on Monday when he hears complaints and grievances of common people.
BJP-JDU ties are not running smoothly with both having divergent views on some key issues, including that of holding caste census. While JDU is quite keen to have the caste census to reap the OBC support, the Central Government on the other hand is averse to holding it as it may open a Pandora’s box of castes and sub-castes and may create a situation like that of the Mandal Commission.