Non-Cong CMs not keen on central meet

Union Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s move to engineer a political consensus on key administrative reforms by holding chief ministers’ conference on Monday might turn out to be a disappointment with non-Congress state heads displaying no eagerness to the Centre-state exercise.

It is learnt that till now, only some chief ministers from the Congress-ruled states have given their nod for attending the conference that seeks to chalk out a strategy to deal with administrative reforms focusing attention on public order and modernising police including in increase in the recruitment of policewomen. Congress chief ministers who have agreed to attend the meeting come from Maharastra, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Assam.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may not attend the conference as he is occupied with other engagements, said a government source. 

The chief ministers of non-Congress-ruled states like Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), J Jayalalitha (Tamil Nadu), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), Akhilesh Yadav (Uttar Pradesh), Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) have not said yes to the conference. Ministry sources said that more chief ministers might send their names as two days remained for the conference to take place.

Previous move

Some of chief ministers belonging to non-Congress parties had stone-walled a previous move for bringing in a national counter terrorism centre (NCTC) on the ground that it would impede on the federal structure, because it would grant powers to conduct an operation without taking the states into account.

Shinde is believed to impress on the state governments the need to expedite police reforms despite the Supreme Court critising the states over implementing its famous judgment delivered about eight years back. The suggestions included separation of crime investigation from other policing functions and setting up of a crime investigation agency in each state.