Most non-BJP CMs holding Home portfolios skip MHA meet

The only non-BJP CMs with Home portfolios to attend the 'Chintan Shivir' were Bhagwant Mann and Pinarayi Vijayan

Most non-BJP Chief Ministers holding charge of Home Departments, barring Punjab's Bhagwant Mann and Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan, did not attend the 'Chintan Shivir' organised by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday.

Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), M K Stalin (Tamil Nadu) and Ashok Gehlot (Rajasthan) -- all holding the home portfolios -- were the non-NDA chief ministers who skipped the two-day meeting which will have a video address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.

At the meeting chaired by Home Minister Amit Shah in Haryana's Surajkund, Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh's Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu was present while Telangana's home minister Mohammad Mahmood Ali skipped the deliberations.

West Bengal sent an Additional DGP to meet while DGP represented Bihar at the meeting that discussed a host of issues including cyber crime and ensuring women's security and coastal security.

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Besides Mann and Vijayan, the Chief Ministers who are attending the conference are Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana), Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam), N Biren Singh (Manipur), Pramod Sawant (Goa), Manik Saha (Tripura), Pushkar Singh Dhami (Uttarakhand) and Prem Singh Tamang (Sikkim).

Apart from Tamang, all the chief ministers are from the BJP. While Tamang is from Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, a BJP ally, other Chief Ministers are from the BJP barring Mann and Vijayan. Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Phadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister of Nagaland Y Patton -- both from BJP -- also attended the meeting.

Addressing the meeting, Shah said areas affected by left wing extremism, Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast, which were once hot spots of violence and unrest, are now becoming hotspots of development.

Shah said after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019, a new beginning of peace and progress has begun there. He said compared to 37 months before August 5, 2019, there has been a 34 percent reduction in terrorist incidents and 54 percent reduction in deaths amongst security forces in the 37 months after August 5, 2019.

Noting that cybercrime is a big challenge before the country and the world today, he said Ministry of Home Affairs is committed to battle against it. He also said the states should make maximum use of forensic science to increase the conviction rate.