NCTC contradicts by Non- Congress Cheif Ministers
Five Chief Ministers -The Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal; Navin Patnaik , the Chief Minister of Odisha; Nitish Kumar of Bihar; Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi of the BJP; and Jayalalithaa from Tamil Nadu on Friday (February 17) join hands against the UPA’s pet projectand ,Telugu Desam chief and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu to oppose the Centre’s move. Have come out against the National Counter Terrorism Centre(NCTC) , which was intended as a nodal counter-terrorism agency and was to be operationalised from 1 March. Non-Congress opposition parties and leaders have similarly criticised the proposal.
The West Bengal Chief Minister’s Office on Thursday circulated a copy of the letter written by Mamata who is known to have blocked key government decisions, dated on Febuary 14th to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with an obvious intention to put pressure on the Centre to rethink on creation of the anti-terror agency; she said that “arbitrary exercise of powers” by the NCTC would have “a bearing on the rights and privilege of the states as enshrined in the constitution” and also the home ministry should have consulted state governments before establishing such powerful organizations “which infringed upon the powers and rights of the state governments”.
Banerjee follows Patnaik, who described the executive order on establishing NCTC as “draconian” and asked Manmohan Singh to withdraw it.
Ms Banerjee shared the stage with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee at a function in Bengal today. Mr Mukherjee is aware of his new assignment. “The government will examine everything and then decide,” about the conflict with state governments over the anti-terror agency.
Home Minister P Chidambaram has treated the new hub as a priority since the Mumbai attacks of 26/11.
Reacting to the controversy, Congress leader Manoj Tewari said to Times Now, “Every Chief Minister has the flexibility to articulate their opinion. It’s unfortunate that the discussion is taking place after the attack on the Israeli diplomate. The reality needs to be kept in mind. If at all there is issue of transgressing the rights of the state, they will be sorted out. The intent was to have a credible instrument to proactively counter terror.”
The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief told reporters in Bhubaneswar that “Terrorism is not a problem confined only to the central government. It’s a national problem. If the prime minister and home minister are serious about it then they should have taken state governments on board and decided on something that was acceptable to all”.
