PM Modi chairs 8th Niti Aayog meeting. Who is present, who is not?

As a preparatory prelude to the 8th Governing Council Meeting, the second Chief Secretaries Conference was held in January 2023, where these themes were extensively discussed.

“Eight prominent themes will be discussed during the day-long Meeting including (i) Viksit Bharat@2047, (ii) Thrust on MSMEs, (iii) Infrastructure and Investments, (iv) Minimising Compliances, (v) Women Empowerment, (vi) Health and Nutrition, (vii) Skill Development, and (viii) Gati Shakti for area development and social infrastructure,” the NITI Aayog stated.

A total of eight chief ministers, namely Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi), Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Bhagwant Mann (Punjab), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), K Chandrashekar Rao (Telangana), MK Stalin (Tamil Nadu), Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan), and Pinarayi Vijayan (Kerala), have chosen not to participate in the Niti Aayog meeting.

In a letter to the Prime Minister on Friday, Kejriwal said that he was “boycotting” the meeting in protest against the “undemocratic and unconstitutional” May 19 ordinance that restored control over services in the national capital to the Centre under the LG, effectively nullifying a Supreme Court order that handed over control of services, barring police, public order and land, to the elected government.

Bhagwant Mann expressed his decision to abstain from the governing council meeting, citing the Union government’s disregard for farmer-related concerns. AAP’s Punjab chief spokesperson, Malvinder Singh Kang, justified the decision, citing issues such as the withholding of Rural Development Fee (RDF) amounting to ₹4,000 crores, reduction in RDF rate, cessation of mandi tax, delayed GST compensation, and the transfer of sanctioned projects to other states.

Updated: 27 May 2023, 12:16 PM IST