Non-Congress chief ministers were bound by a common goal on Monday: uphold the federal structure of India.
Non-Congress chief ministers were bound by a common goal on Monday: uphold the federal structure of India.
At a meeting of chief ministers on national security, J Jayalalithaa, Narendra Modi and Naveen Patnaik strongly criticised the Centre over the proposed NCTC (National Counter Terrorism Centre) saying it would trample on the rights of states. They later met to formulate a common strategy to oppose the NCTC.
Congress ally in the UPA-II, the Trinamool has made it clear in the past that the party is against the NCTC. Party chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was absent at the meeting but her speech was read out. She said the NCTC upsets the federal structure of the country.
Speaking to the media, Patnaik said it was “just a courtesy call as Jayalalithaa was a friend of my father”. But the underlying political message was obvious — the non-Congress CMs would not keep themselves confined to only raising centre-state issues. Their coming together could have an immediate impact in the July presidential elections because the Congress is in minority.
The CMs of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Odisha almost hijacked the meeting making no bones about their resentment on the NCTC. The Centre had called the meeting to allay state fears regarding the proposed legislations for BSF and other security-related issues.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh vainly tried to reach out to the CMs by suggesting joint and coordinated efforts to deal with the challenges of terrorism. “The Centre is ready to work with the states to put in place strong and effective institutional mechanisms to tackle this problem,” he said.
Home minister P Chidambaram tried to assure them that there would be no conflict of interests.
Chidambaram said if the states and the Centre worked together “we can make this country safe and secure”.
But Jayalalithaa and Modi were unsparing in their attack. They said that internal security was primarily a responsibility of the state government. Instead of according states this primacy and showing some respect to the CMs, the Centre was trying to encroach upon state rights, they said.
The centre had reduced the states to the level of municipalities, Jayalalithaa said. Gujarat CM Modi spoke of “mistrust and suspicion” between the states and the Centre.
They also highlighted how the Centre has been “abusing its powers by using the CBI to harass political rivals”. “Internal security is too serious a matter to be treated like an arena for political one-upmanship. The states should be treated as partners,” Modi said. Without referring directly to defence minister AK Antony, he said it was unfortunate that the “Union government had failed to instill faith and confidence among citizens about our defence preparedness”.
Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal invited all the non-Congress CMs to a meeting on May 4 at the Punjab Bhavan — a day before the meeting of CMs with the Centre to discuss the NCTC — to devise a strategy.
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