In a major snub to the UPA government, the chief ministers of both Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have decided to skip the Conference of Chief Ministers on Internal Security in the national capital today.
While Jayalalithaa’s rationale to skip the conference was that chief ministers were given ‘very little’ opportunity to express their views during the ‘ritualistic’ conferences chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has not offered any explanation on why she would not be attending the meeting called by the home ministry.
Observing that the issue of internal security had a very important function concerning the maintenance of public order, Jayalalithaa in a letter to Singh, said such conferences held by the Centre have become an ‘annual ritualistic exercise and very little opportunity was given to chief ministers to express their views.’
‘This conference too, carries a long and weighty agenda of 12 subjects. Uttering just their titles would in itself take 10 minutes which, unfortunately, is the time being cavalierly allotted to the chief ministers to present their views’, she said in the letter. ‘Chief ministers are equal partners with the union government in ‘governance’ and are expected to make meaningful contributions to the discussions, so that ‘the Centre is made aware of the true situation on the ground’, she added. ‘The Conferences with Chief Ministers on important issues have been reduced to a routinised ritual, rather than a consultative process, with the chief ministers constantly guillotined to cut short their speeches,’ she said.
She said the current conference too was aimed at ‘assembling the chief ministers of states to rubber stamp some measures pre-decided by the (Union) government without adequately considering the views of the states.’
She recalled her past experience at the national development council meeting held in December 2012 where she was forced to cut short her speech.
‘Rather than attending a conference where chief ministers are being rail-roaded to finish their speeches within 10 minutes and to merely lay a speech on the table, I am deputing K P Munusamy, minister for municipal administration, the home secretary (Sheila Balakrishnan) and the director general of police(K Ramanujam) to attend the Conference on my behalf’.
Meanwhile, a source in the West Bengal state secretariat said regarding Mamata Banerjee’s absence, ‘No, she is not going. Finance minister Amit Mitra will represent the state at the meeting.’ He also could not state who would accompany Mitra. The chief minister had earlier on 16 April last year skipped a similar meeting.
Banerjee had also accused the Centre of holding out threat of using the CBI against the state government since Trinamool Congress quit the UPA on the issue of FDI in retail. She has been attacking Congress for ‘discrimination’ against a cash-strapped Bengal.
While Jayalalithaa’s rationale to skip the conference was that chief ministers were given ‘very little’ opportunity to express their views during the ‘ritualistic’ conferences chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has not offered any explanation on why she would not be attending the meeting called by the home ministry.
Observing that the issue of internal security had a very important function concerning the maintenance of public order, Jayalalithaa in a letter to Singh, said such conferences held by the Centre have become an ‘annual ritualistic exercise and very little opportunity was given to chief ministers to express their views.’
‘This conference too, carries a long and weighty agenda of 12 subjects. Uttering just their titles would in itself take 10 minutes which, unfortunately, is the time being cavalierly allotted to the chief ministers to present their views’, she said in the letter. ‘Chief ministers are equal partners with the union government in ‘governance’ and are expected to make meaningful contributions to the discussions, so that ‘the Centre is made aware of the true situation on the ground’, she added. ‘The Conferences with Chief Ministers on important issues have been reduced to a routinised ritual, rather than a consultative process, with the chief ministers constantly guillotined to cut short their speeches,’ she said.
She said the current conference too was aimed at ‘assembling the chief ministers of states to rubber stamp some measures pre-decided by the (Union) government without adequately considering the views of the states.’
She recalled her past experience at the national development council meeting held in December 2012 where she was forced to cut short her speech.
‘Rather than attending a conference where chief ministers are being rail-roaded to finish their speeches within 10 minutes and to merely lay a speech on the table, I am deputing K P Munusamy, minister for municipal administration, the home secretary (Sheila Balakrishnan) and the director general of police(K Ramanujam) to attend the Conference on my behalf’.
Meanwhile, a source in the West Bengal state secretariat said regarding Mamata Banerjee’s absence, ‘No, she is not going. Finance minister Amit Mitra will represent the state at the meeting.’ He also could not state who would accompany Mitra. The chief minister had earlier on 16 April last year skipped a similar meeting.
Banerjee had also accused the Centre of holding out threat of using the CBI against the state government since Trinamool Congress quit the UPA on the issue of FDI in retail. She has been attacking Congress for ‘discrimination’ against a cash-strapped Bengal.