Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy announced on Wednesday that his government will skip the NITI Aayog meeting on July 27. This decision was taken in protest against the central government’s alleged denial of the state’s funds and infringement on its rights. 

“Prime Minister is the chairman of NITI Aayog. NITI Aayog meeting would be held on (July) 27th under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji. As Chief Minister of Telangana, (I am) boycotting the NITI Aayog meeting for hurting Telangana’s interests, not releasing the funds due to Telangana and for not giving the permissions due to be given to Telangana,” he said.

After a day-long debate, the Telangana Assembly passed a resolution criticising the central government’s alleged unfair treatment of the state in the Union Budget. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposed this resolution.

All Congress chief ministers — Karnataka’s Siddaramaiah, Telangana’s Revanth Reddy and Himachal Pradesh’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu — will be boycotting the NITI Aayog meeting, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said in a post on Tuesday. Along with that, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin will also be skipping the meeting to protest against the “discriminatory” budget. 

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal attacked the Opposition over the decision.

“I think due to their (the opposition) personal thinking of hatred towards PM Modi – they don’t think about their own people… Be it Telangana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu – eight states have boycotted last year’s NITI Aayog meeting which was centred around Viksit Bharat… They only talk about democracy by having the Constitution in hand, they do drama but they don’t believe in democracy. They are arrogant about the names of their families. Being misguided by the Congress party, the parties in the INDI alliance are trying to demolish the democratic system,” he said.

On Wednesday, MPs from the INDIA bloc protested at the Parliament, claiming the Union Budget unfairly targets states led by opposition parties. Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition, described the budget as an “assault on the sanctity of India’s federal structure”. 

Along with Gandhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, and MPs from Congress, TMC, Samajwadi Party, DMK, and the Left took part in the protest at the Parliament steps.