Will attend Niti Aayog meeting to protest anti-opposition budget: Mamata Banerjee.

This is the first time the West Bengal chief minister, also the Trinamool Congress chairperson, will be attending a Niti Aayog meeting.West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday left for Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog meeting on July 27, during which she plans to raise her voice against the Centre’s “step-motherly attitude” towards opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget 2024-25.“Before the budget, I said I would attend the meeting. A copy of my written speech was also sent to Niti Aayog as per their requirement. When the budget was placed, I found how states ruled by opposition parties have been neglected. They have been shown step-motherly attitude. I want to speak about this. If they allow me to speak, it’s fine. If they don’t, I will protest and leave,” Banerjee told reporters in Kolkata before leaving for Delhi.“We cannot accept this discrimination. This is political bias,” she added.This is the first time Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson, will be attending a Niti Aayog meeting. She had periodically protested the dismantling of the Planning Commission in 2014 by the first Narendra Modi government, saying it was an insult to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who conceived it.Although the chief minsters of three Congress-ruled states have boycotted the meeting, Banerjee’s decision to attend it raised questions since the boycott was seen as a strategy of the INDIA block of which TMC is a part.“I am told that Hemant Soren (Jharkhand chief minister) is also attending. His state has been neglected too,” she said, accompanied by her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. The TMC chairperson accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to split West Bengal by demanding the formation of special zones.BJP’s West Bengal unit president Sukanta Majumdar, who is also the Union minister of state for development of North-East region, proposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting in Delhi on Tuesday to include the north Bengal region in India’s North-East to ensure development.On Thursday, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey demanded in Parliament that the Centre should form a Union Territory comprising West Bengal’s Murshidabad and Malda districts, and three districts of Jharkhand. He alleged that population of Muslims in these districts were posing a threat to Hindus.“All this is part of a conspiracy to divide West Bengal. A minister (Majumdar) is making such a demand when the Parliament is in session. Another BJP member raises a different demand to divide West Bengal and Jharkhand. They have planned an economic, political and geographical blockade of West Bengal. To divide West Bengal is akin to dividing India,” Mamata Banerjee said.Meanwhile, state Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy targeted Banerjee for attending the Niti Aayog meeting.