The NITI Aayog CEO issued a statement on Saturday following the departure of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Banerjee claimed that she was unfairly interrupted during her speech, prompting her to walk out.
As the sole representative from the Opposition INDIA bloc to attend the meeting, Banerjee had requested an early time slot. This led to a deviation from the usual alphabetical order followed for state presentations. NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam clarified the situation, stating that Banerjee was given the allotted time and that a timer on the screen displayed the remaining time for each speaker.
Subrahmanyam emphasized, “We actually adjusted and the Defence Minister actually called her in just before Gujarat. So she made her statement. Every chief minister is allotted seven minutes and there’s just a clock on top of the screen which tells you the time that is remaining. So it goes from seven to six to five to four to three. At the end of that, it shows zero. Zero. Nothing else. Nothing else has happened other than that…Then she said look, I would have liked to speak for more time, but I’ll not speak anymore. That was it. There was nothing more. We all heard.”
