New Delhi, September 12: A day after the National Integration Council (NIC) meeting ended in disarray after several states, including some ruled by Congress or UPA partners like Trinamool Congress, opposed the government’s proposed communal violence bill for “coming in the way of federal relations between the Centre and the states, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi suggested that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh form a committee of chief ministers to resolve festering problems between the Centre and the states.
At least six chief ministers stayed away from the meeting chaired by home minister P Chidambaram on Saturday. Modi was among those absent.
Modi, caught in a running battle with the Centre over various issues including the recent appointment of Lokayukta by the governor without his approval, told from Ahmedabad that “the prime minister form a small committee of chief ministers to resolve issues between the Centre and the states that have piled up”.
Modi added, “The PM should convene a meeting of the committee of chief ministers and try to resolve all the issues that have come up between the Centre and the states.”
He said the PM should have noticed that whatever happened at Saturday’s NIC meeting did not have to do just with the communal violence bill. That was only one of the contentious issues that the states had against the Centre.
Modi said the bill had turned into a controversial issue and was opposed for being seen as “the Centre trying to take over the law and order situation of a state”. He added that the difference of opinion reflected in the meeting was an outcome of Centre-state issues that had piled up over the last two-and-a-half years. The problem, he said, needed to be seen in its overall perspective and a solution had to be found to maintain the federal structure of our polity.
Modi also said it was his experience from earlier meetings that NIC had turned into a “BJP-bashing forum”.
–Agencies