Treatment of Mamata Banerjee at NITI Aayog meet ‘unacceptable’, says Congress

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has criticised government-run think tank NITI Aayog for allegedly discriminating against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by not allowing her to speak freely during a meeting of its Governing Council on Saturday.

Banerjee, the sole chief minister from an Opposition-ruled state to attend, had walked out of the gathering claiming that she was given “inadequate time to speak” and that her microphone was turned off within five minutes of her address.

Banerjee had said on Friday that she would attend the meeting to protest the “political discrimination being done with Bengal”.

The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam.

The Congress and Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party are allies in the Opposition INDIA bloc, which took on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha elections.

Since it was established ten years ago, NITI Aayog has been an attached office of the PMO and has functioned as a drumbeater for the non-biological PM.

It has not advanced the cause of cooperative federalism in any manner. Its functioning has been blatantly partisan, and it is…— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 27, 2024

“[NITI Aayog] muzzles all divergent and dissenting viewpoints, which are the very essence of an open democracy,” Ramesh wrote in a post on X on...

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