Bhubaneswar: Panchaayati Raj Minister Pradip Amat and Minister of State for Home Tusharkanti Behera will represent Odisha at the eastern zonal council meeting to be chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the West Bengal secretariat in Kolkata on Saturday, official sources said.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will not be attending the meeting of four states comprising Odisha Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
Though no specific reason has been cited, the current political atmosphere with elections due in 2024 is speculated as a reason behind Naveen’s decision to skip the meeting as his interaction with Shah and CMs of Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand would have been keenly watched and interpreted. He might have also wanted to avoid the strain of travelling.
Naveen had recently attended an all-party meeting on India’s G20 presidency chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi. His party, BJD, however, had avoided a meeting called by Leader of Opposition and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge over India-China LAC faceoff and attended by TMC, Left parties, RJD, DMK, Samajwadi Party and AAP, among others.
Notably, Shah, Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee had lunch at Naveen’s residence during the council meeting in Bhubaneswar in February 2020. The states had then demanded quick revision of coal royalty, last done in 2012.
Odisha is likely to raise the same issue again besides an increase in rail and tele density in the state. It may also reiterate change in criteria for consideration of the disaster-prone state as a special category state, sources added.
