West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will not be attending a meeting of Chief Ministers convened by the Centre in New Delhi on Monday to discuss matters relating to internal security. Finance Minister Amit Mitra is expected to represent West Bengal at the meeting, informed sources said here on Sunday.
Ms. Banerjee, however, will attend a meeting convened by the Centre on May 5 to discuss National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC). Ms. Banerjee is among the Chief Ministers who have expressed their reservations on the NCTC.
She had earlier sought a separate meeting to discuss the issue, instead of taking it up as one of the issues at the conclave on internal security. She had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last month. Subsequently, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram wrote to Ms. Banerjee stating that a separate meeting will be convened on May 5 to discuss the NCTC issue.
In an interview to select television channels on March 29, she had underlined the need for a meeting that would concentrate only on the NCTC issue. “Ten important issues cannot be discussed on a single day,” she had argued.
Among the issues to be discussed at Monday's meeting is strengthening counter-terrorism and intelligence capabilities, tackling cross-border terrorism and left-wing extremism and combating economic offences.