‘Mamata Banerjee requested to speak before lunch’: NITI Aayog on Bengal CM's walkout

The NITI Aayog on Saturday clarified over West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's walkout from the central think tank's meeting. Banerjee had walked out of the meeting, claiming she was unfairly stopped midway through her speech, despite being the sole representative of the opposition.

“We had 10 absentees and 26 participants. We had absentees from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Puducherry. The chief minister of West Bengal was present. The chief minister of West Bengal had made a request to be given a turn before lunchtime. I'm just putting facts on the ground, no interpretations,” NITI Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam was quoted by ANI as saying.

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Adding further, Subrahmanyam said,"It was a very clear request from their side because normally we would have gone alphabetically. So it begins with Andhra Pradesh, then Arunachal Pradesh...We actually adjusted and the Defence Minister actually called her in just before Gujarat. So she made her statement. Every chief minister is allotted seven minutes and there's just a clock on top of the screen which tells you the time that is remaining."

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“So it goes from seven to six to five to four to three. At the end of that, it shows zero. Zero.Nothing else. Nothing else has happened other than that...Then she said look, I would have liked to speak for more time, but I'll not speak anymore. That was it. There was nothing more. We all heard,” the NITI Aayog CEO added.

“She made her points and we respectfully heard and noted points, which will be reflected in a minute...Just to mention the fact the chief secretary continued to attend and he was in the room even after she left because she had to catch a flight to Calcutta,” Subrahmanyam said.

The NITI Aayog CEO further said,"We had a lot of last-minute dropouts, I have speeches of some states who had not participated- Jharkhand and Puducherry. Not all have dropped out for boycott reasons. For those who did not participate, I always say that it is their loss. The room is richer if they are there both for us and for them. Nobody is going to be excluded if they are not going to participate."

What Mamata Banerjee said?

Mamata Banerjee had alleged that she was stopped after speaking for five minutes."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," the Trinamool Congress chief had said.

“This is insulting. I will not attend any further meeting,” she added.

(With PTI, ANI inputs)