Saturday's NITI Aayog meeting led to a dramatic showdown when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stormed out, accusing the central government of 'muting her mic'. Banerjee alleged the BJP allies were given more time to speak, while she was abruptly cut off after only five minutes.
This led to a heated political clash, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other officials vehemently denying her accusations.
Emerging from the meeting, Banerjee said: “I have come out boycotting the meeting. Chandrababu Naidu was given 20 minutes to speak. The chief ministers of Assam, Goa, and Chhattisgarh spoke for 10-12 minutes. I was stopped from speaking after just five minutes. This is unfair.”
She questioned the government’s commitment to cooperative federalism and accused it of discriminating against non-BJP states in the Union Budget.
Sitharaman swiftly countered Banerjee’s claims, stating, “CM Mamata Banerjee attended the Niti Aayog meeting. We all heard her. Every CM was given the allotted time, and that was displayed on the screen, which was present before every table. She said in the media that her mic was turned off. That is completely false.” She added, “If she’s reminded that her time is over, even with the mic on, she could have requested to continue speaking as some other chief ministers did. But she chose to use it as an excuse to get out of the meeting.”
The Press Information Bureau (PIB) also refuted Banerjee’s allegations. A fact-check by PIB stated, “It is being claimed that the microphone of CM, West Bengal was switched off during the 9th Governing Council Meeting of NITI Aayog. This claim is misleading. The clock only showed that her speaking time was over. Even the bell was not rung to mark it.” According to PIB, Banerjee’s turn to speak was scheduled after lunch, but she was “accommodated” as the seventh speaker following an official request from her office.
As the drama unfolded, BJP leaders did not hold back. BJP general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh remarked, “It is very easy to grab headlines in our country. First, tell me I am the only 'Opposition CM' attending the Niti Aayog meeting. Come out and tell ‘I boycotted since the mic was switched off’. Now the whole day TVs will display the same. No work. No discussion. That's Didi to you.”
Amit Malviya, head of the BJP's IT department, called Banerjee’s actions theatrical and detrimental to governance. “It is sad to see a Chief Minister reduce serious issues of governance to theatrics. People of West Bengal are suffering as a consequence of her confrontational politics,” he stated.
NITI Aayog’s CEO, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, offered a factual account, stating, “The Chief Minister of West Bengal requested to be given a turn before lunchtime. It was a clear request from their side because normally we would have gone alphabetically. We adjusted, and the Defence Minister called her in just before Gujarat. So, she made her statement.” He added, “Every Chief Minister is allotted seven minutes, and there's a clock on top of the screen that shows the remaining time. Nothing else happened. Then she said she would have liked to speak for more time but chose not to. We all heard her points respectfully, and they will be reflected in the minutes.”
The Congress party joined the fray, condemning the treatment of Banerjee and accusing NITI Aayog of blatant partisanship. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh commented, “Since it was established ten years ago, NITI Aayog has been an attached office of the PMO and has functioned as a drumbeater for the non-biological PM. Its functioning has been blatantly partisan, and it is anything but professional and independent. It muzzles all divergent and dissenting viewpoints, which are the very essence of an open democracy. Its meetings are a farce to be reckoned with.”