Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann’s decision to boycott the NITI Ayog’s meeting on July 27 has come as a surprise. Till now, Mann, as the Chief Minister of Punjab, has always maintained a cordial and workable relationship with the central government.
In fact the Chief Ministers in Punjab, irrespective of the party they belonged to, whether Prakash Singh Badal or Captain Amarinder Singh, predecessors of Mann, have always maintained good relationships with the centre, no matter which party or alliance was in power.
When Badal was Chief Minister in Punjab, he accorded equal respect to the Congress Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, as he used to give Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi, his alliance partners. This worked very well for the state and he rarely complained of discrimination by the centre, not even when it was the Congress-led UPA government there.
The same was the approach of Capt Amarinder who had established a good working relationship with both Vajpayee and Modi. Manmohan Singh anyway belonged to his party. It was this cordial relationship with Prime Minister Modi that eventually facilitated his entry into the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Mann, so far, had also maintained a cordial working relationship with the centre including Prime Minister Modi, and the Union Home Minister Amit Shah. That is the natural course for a Chief Minister to adopt, particularly for the one heading a border state like Punjab.
However, for the first time, Mann has decided to “boycott” the NITI Ayog meeting in solidarity with other Chief Ministers from the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) including Himachal CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, Telangana CM Revant Reddy and Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin.
The three Congress Chief Ministers from Himachal, Karnataka and Telangana do not have many options other than following the diktats of their high command in Delhi.
The Congress has already taken an aggressive confrontationist position towards the BJP government at the centre.
Boycotting of the NITI Ayog meeting by its Chief Ministers fits in that approach and is understandable.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has also taken a robust anti-BJP position. His party, the DMK has an alliance with the Congress in the state, for both parliament as well as the assembly elections.
Compared to their position, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is reported to be attending the NITI Ayog meeting. Her party Trinamool Congress is also a part of the INDIA bloc. She also remains a bitter critic of the BJP. Despite that, she has opted to attend the meeting. Other INDIA bloc Chief Ministers are also likely to boycott the Ayog meeting.
Mann’s position is completely different from that of Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand or other Congress-ruled state Chief Ministers. His party no doubt is part of the INDIA bloc, but in Punjab, it fought a bitter battle against the Congress and fared badly winning just three of the thirteen parliamentary constituencies. Congress won seven.
The INDIA bloc was constituted with the sole purpose of presenting a united fight to the BJP in the General Elections only. There was no discussion about the state-based alliances and West Bengal, Punjab and Kerala were examples where the INDIA bloc members fought against each other.
The Congress wants the INDIA bloc to continue, as it provides the party greater strength as an opposition. In case the INDIA bloc disintegrates, the greatest loss would be that of the Congress as it can no longer claim the leadership of 232 Lok Sabha members.
The AAP in general and Bhagwant Mann in particular have nothing to gain from continuing with the INDIA bloc and subscribing to every stand and decision it takes. Punjab in no way stands to gain by boycotting the NITI Ayog meeting.
The state is already faced with a financial crunch and is massively dependent on the centre. A positive working relationship between the state and the central governments will always be in the interest of the state instead of confrontation, which will only prove to be counterproductive.
While Mann has gone along with the INDIA bloc decision to boycott the NITI Ayog meeting at the instance of the Congress (at the national level), he will have to face the opposition onslaught, mainly from the Congress, for shortage of funds and resource crunch that will hamper development.
His earlier pragmatic approach of keeping the office of the Chief Minister and that of the Aam Aadmi Party leader separate vis-à-vis the centre was better.
Mann should be guided more by the needs of his state than the political agenda set by the Congress at the national level. That agenda may not necessarily be always in the interest of the AAP and Punjab.
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