NEW DELHI: Three prominent Chief Ministers - J Jayalalithaa, Narendra Modi, Naveen Patnaik - belonging to the Opposition held a parallel meeting on a day when the Prime Minister convened a meeting of chief ministers on internal security - seemingly to mount more pressure on the UPA government on issues like the NCTC.
AIADMK leader M Thambidurai told Express that Punjab deputy chief minister and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Sukhbir Singh Badal was also supposed to meet Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa but could not make it since he could not finish his speech at the CMs’ conference in time.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was the first to meet Jayalalithaa, and the meeting lasted for about 20 minutes. Refusing to divulge the details of the meeting, Patnaik said “it was merely a courtesy call”, as the AIADMK leader was “an old family friend of his father”.
Afterwards, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi met Jayalalithaa and the meeting lasted for about 40 minutes.
Modi, too, refused to speak to the waiting media. Jayalalithaa merely said that “she would speak to the press on her next visit to the Capital”.
The emergence of a new pressure group - the trio is united in their strident opposition to the UPA government on measures like the NCTC and other measures that, they argue, affect the federal structure of the Constitution - is only likely to give the Union government more anxious moments, what with another meeting being planned in May.