Shah to chair Eastern Zonal Council meet today; Odisha CM to skip meeting
Shah to chair Eastern Zonal Council meet today; Odisha CM to skip meeting
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Bhubaneswar: Official sources claimed that Panchayati Raj Minister Pradip Amat and Minister of State for Home Tusharkanti Behera will represent Odisha in the eastern zonal council meeting, which will be headed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the West Bengal secretariat in Kolkata on Saturday.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will not attend the four-state meeting, which includes Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.
Though no specific reason has been given, the current political climate, with elections scheduled for 2024, is thought to be a factor in Naveen's decision to skip the meeting, as his interactions with Shah and the chief ministers of Bihar, West Bengal, and Jharkhand would have been closely watched and interpreted. He might also have sought to avoid the stress of travel.
Naveen had recently attended an all-party meeting in Delhi on India's G20 presidency, which was presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His party, the BJD, had avoided a meeting held by Opposition Leader and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge over the India-China LAC standoff, which the TMC attended, Left parties, RJD, DMK, Samajwadi Party, and AAP, among others.
During the February 2020 council meeting in Bhubaneswar, Shah, Nitish Kumar, and Mamata Banerjee had lunch at Naveen's mansion. The states then urged a speedy adjustment of the coal royalty, which was last done in 2012.
Odisha is likely to bring up the same issue again, in addition to increasing rail and cable density in the state. According to sources, it may also reaffirm changes in criteria for considering the disaster-prone state as a special category state.
