Fruitless to attend NITI Ayog meet: Mamata

Continuing on a collision course with the Centre's Narendra Modi-led NDA dispensation, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written to the Prime Minister saying it was "fruitless" for her to attend the June 15 meeting of the NITI Ayog as the body had no financial powers and the power to support state plans.

In a letter to Modi on June 6, which was officially made public on Friday, Banerjee suggested that the government's focus on the Inter State Council with appropriate modifications to "deepen cooperative federalism and strengthen federal unity".

Banerjee also claimed in the three-page missive that the National Development Council, "which has been given a quiet burial", be subsumed within the broadened constitutional body of the Inter State Council.

The June 15 NITI Ayog governing council meeting, to be chaired by Modi is slated to discuss multiple issues relating to water management, agriculture and security.

It is the fifth meeting of the governing council -- the apex forum of NITI Ayog -- that is constituted of all Chief Ministers, Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories, several Union Ministers and senior government officials.

--IANS

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