West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said she had to leave the 9th Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as she was not allowed to complete her speech, alleging that her microphone was turned off five minutes into her address. She also accused the Centre of discriminating against opposition-ruled states in financial allocations.
However, the Union government’s fact-checking body refuted the West Bengal CM’s claim as “misleading”.
“It is being claimed that the microphone of CM, West Bengal was switched off during the 9th Governing Council Meeting of NITI Aayog… The clock only showed that her speaking time was over. Even the bell was not rung to mark it,” the Press Information Bureau (PIB) said in a post on X.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while speaking to reporters, reiterated that it was “completely false” for the CM to claim that her microphone was switched off, asserting that every Chief Minister at the meeting was “allotted their due time to speak”.
Addressing the media about the deliberations in the meeting, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, the Chief Executive Officer of NITI Aayog, said every CM was allotted seven minutes to speak and each of them was called for their submission in alphabetical order. “Since she was representing West Bengal, her turn would have come in the afternoon, but she requested to speak before lunch, and the same was agreed upon. She was allowed to speak during her entire allotted time.”
Mamata Banerjee was the only CM from an opposition-ruled state who attended the meeting. She said that either NITI Aayog should be given the power to enable it to help the states financially or the Planning Commission, which was dissolved by the Modi government, should be brought back.
Speaking to media persons after leaving the venue, Mamata alleged that her microphone had been switched off while she was speaking. She also slammed the Union Budget for 2024–25, calling it "biassed."
"I have come out boycotting the meeting. (Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister) Chandrababu Naidu was given 20 minutes to speak. The chief ministers of Assam, Goa, Chhattisgarh spoke for 10–12 minutes. I was stopped from speaking after just five minutes. This is unfair. From the opposition side, I was the only one here. I attended the meeting because cooperative federalism should be strengthened, but still, I was not allowed to speak," the West Bengal CM said.
Later, Tamil Nadu CM M.K. Stalin, who skipped attending the meeting, came out in support of her and said, “Cooperative federalism requires dialogue and respect for all voices.” The other CMs who did not attend the meeting included those from Congress-ruled Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and Telangana; CPI(M)-led Kerala; AAP-ruled Punjab and Delhi; and Jharkhand, where the JMM is in power.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whose party JD(U) is part of the ruling NDA at the Centre, also did not attend the meeting. Giving reasons for his absence, Subrahmanyam said that since the state assembly was in session and it got over late in the evening the previous day, he could not come. About the other absentee CMs, he said that had they all attended, it would have enriched the forum and also their states.
Meanwhile, noting that she was at the meeting to strengthen cooperative federalism, the West Bengal CM said, “There are many regional aspirations. That is why I am here, to share those aspirations. If a state is strong, the Union will be strong. Many states have been deprived in the Budget, including my state, which has been deprived of MNREGA funds for the last three years.”
The West Bengal CM said before she was stopped abruptly, she also underlined that the Centre cannot discriminate between the states based on its political equation with the parties governing them. Alluding to the special financial packages to Andhra Pradesh and Bihar in the annual budget presented last week, she said she did not mind some states drawing “special attention” from the Centre as long as others are not deprived.
Sources in the TMC said that the CM decided to attend the meeting despite attempts by the INDIA bloc to persuade her to give it a miss. This was essentially a move to send out a message to the Congress that her political actions would not be guided by the strategies drawn up by the main opposition party.
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