West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Amarinder Singh, her Punjab counterpart, will give a miss to the Saturday’s meeting of the NITI Aayog’s governing council to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reports said.
According to news agencies ANI and PTI, the Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh is unwell and state finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal will attend the meeting in his place.
“The Punjab chief minister is indisposed and is likely to skip the Niti Aayog’s meeting. The state finance minister will attend in his place,” PTI quoted a source as saying.
West Bengal CM Banerjee had said that she would be skipping the NITI Aayog meeting. Even previously, she has criticised the NITI Aayog calling it a ‘fruitless’ exercise as it does not have any financial powers to aid the states.
“Mamata Banerjee may not attend the Niti Aayog’s February 20 meeting,” a senior TMC leader was quoted as saying in the agency report.
The Niti Aayog’s governing council includes all chief ministers, lieutenant governors of union territories, several Union ministers and senior government officials.
The prime minister will chair Saturday’s meeting wherein issues related to agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing and human resource development will be discussed, according to an official statement.
The meeting will witness the entry of Ladakh, in addition to the participation of Jammu and Kashmir as a union territory, the statement said. PTI SKC DIV DIV
