Mamata walks out of NITI Aayog meeting, says stopped from speaking

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee walked out of the NITI Aayog meeting on Saturday, 27 July as she said she was stopped from speaking "after just five minutes". She also slammed the Union Budget for 2024-25, calling it "biased".

"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.

"Even the Budget.... This is a political, biased Budget. I said, why are you discriminating against other states? NITI Aayog has no financial powers, how will it work? Give it financial powers or bring the Planning Commission back," the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo told the media after she came out of the meeting.

"Since the NITI Aayog has been planned, I have not seen a single work being done because they don't have any power. Earlier, there was a Planning Commission. As a chief minister... at that time I saw there was a system," the West Bengal CM had said on Friday, a day before the NITI Aayog meeting.

She said state governments had the power to discuss their issues under the Planning Commission and it was very good at taking care of states in different areas. "But now there is no hope, no scope."

Banerjee said the NITI Aayog should be scrapped. "I will raise my voice that stop this NITI Aayog. They do not have any financial implication. They cannot do anything, only hold meeting once a year to show their face. Please bring back the Planning Commission again," Banerjee added.

"It was a plan of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, and since Independence, the Planning Commission has worked a lot for the country," she said.