Accusing the Centre of behaving like “Viceroys of yore”, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said constitution of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) is a conscious strategy to cast the Centre as an “omnipresent” ruler with States portrayed as dependent vassals.
Underlining that the fight against terror requires clear vision and a strong political will, Mr. Modi said there was a need to carry along all constituents of federal polity and build a conscious view in finalising the strategy to fight it.
“Piecemeal approach with disjointed efforts will not lead us to the desired goal. Without comprehensively reviewing our past efforts and actions we would go on creating agencies and organisations and yet fail to achieve the purpose,” Mr. Modi said.
He accused the Centre of changing the “well-defined and constitutionally mandated” boundaries of Centre-State relations and said there was a disturbing sequence of events in the recent past which revealed “centralists and autocratic mindset that militates against all canons of federalism.”
“Be it proposed amendments to the Railway Protection Act, the Border Security Force Act, and the Limited competitive Examination issue and so on, the Union Government has behaved in a manner which reminds us of Viceroys of yore,” he said.
He said NCTC may look like a hasty and ill-conceived move but in the backdrop of recent events in our “body politic” assumes significance as a conscious strategy to pursue “certain hidden goal”.
“The assertions and assumptions on which the NCTC has been crafted, casts the Central Government in the role of omnipresent, omniscient ruler with the States portrayed like dependent vassals, belittling the States which are today the real engines of India’s progress,” he said.
Mr. Modi urged the Centre to “come to terms with current political realities and change its mindset” of seeking to capture political space through devious executive mechanisms.
