Niti Aayog meet today with PM Modi as chair: Who will attend and who will boycott the meet?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be chairing the Niti Aayog meeting today. This will be the ninth meeting of the council which consists of all the chief ministers of states, all the lieutenant governors of union territories along with many union ministers and PM Modi as the chair.

The meeting is expected to be attended by chief ministers from states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar and an ally of the NDA, has not yet confirmed his presence. A number of chief ministers from opposing parties have boycotted from the event in the meanwhile.

Who will attend the Niti Aayog meet?

Attendees of the NITI Aayog meeting include:

• Eknath Shinde, Chief Minister of Maharashtra 
• Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
• Pema Khandu, Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh
• Chowna Mein, Deputy Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh
• Manik Saha, Chief Minister of Tripura
• Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chief Minister of Assam
• Mohan Charan Majhi, Chief Minister of Odisha
• Vishnu Deo Sai, Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh
• Bhupendra Patel, Chief Minister of Gujarat
• Bhjajanlal Sharma, Chief Minister of Rajasthan
• Conrad Sangma, Chief Minister of Meghalaya
• Mamata Banerjee, Cheif Minister of West Bengal

Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the TMC party, had rejected any rumours on Friday about her attendance at the NITI Aayog government council meeting in Delhi.

Mamata said before leaving for Delhi that she "will protest discriminatory budget proposals, stage walkout from NITI Aayog meeting if needed."

There were rumours that the leader of the TMC might boycott the meeting to express her disapproval of the Union Budget 2024 plan.

Who will boycott the Niti Aayog meet?

• MK Stalin, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
• Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh
• Siddaramaiah, Chief Minister of Karnataka
• Revanth Reddy, Chief Minister of Telangana
• Bhagwant Mann, Chief Minister of Punjab
• Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala
• N Rangasamy, Chief Minister of Puducherry
• Hemant Soren, Chief Minister of Jharkhand (status not confirmed)
   

In a statement, the Centre had said that the purpose of the meeting is to fasten the processes through which government interventions are delivered, hence improving the quality of life for both rural and urban populations. This along with promoting participatory governance and collaboration between the Centre and state governments.

The "Approach Paper" for the vision document on Viksit Bharat @2047 will be discussed during the ninth governing meeting, along with in-depth discussions on the part that states would play in accomplishing this objective. The third National Conference of Chief Secretaries, which took place in December of last year, will also be the subject of discussion during this conference.