Most CMs give a miss to chief ministers' conference

Most chief ministers today chose to miss a high-level conference, convened to thrash out challenging issues on public order and policing, with only seven state leaders attending it.

Most chief ministers on Monday chose to miss a high-level conference, convened to thrash out challenging issues on public order and policing, with only seven state leaders attending it.

The conference of chief ministers, convened by the home ministry, saw attendance of only chief ministers of Odisha (Naveen Patnaik), Assam (Tarun Gogoi), Uttarakhand (Vijay Bahuguna), Tripura (Manik Sarkar), Arunachal Pradesh (Nabam Tuki), Meghalaya (Mukul Sangma) and Nagaland (Neiphiu Rio).

Non-Congress chief ministers Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), J Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu), Akhilesh Yadav (Uttar Pradesh), Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) and Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) did not attend the meeting, which was convened for the first time during the tenure of home minister Sushilkumar Shinde.

Even Congress chief ministers of Maharashtra (Prithviraj Chavan), Andhra Pradesh (N Kiran Kumar Reddy), Rajasthan (Ashok Gehlot), Kerala (Oommen Chandy), Haryana (Bhupinder Singh Hooda), Manipur (O Ibobi Singh) and Himachal Pradesh (Virbhadra Singh) did not participate in it.

The Bihar chief minister was in Delhi on Sunday but still did not attend the meeting, while Himachal Pradesh and Manipur chief ministers had given their confirmation but did not turn up.

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah had initially given his consent, but did not attend.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who usually attends the chief ministers' conference as a chief guest, also skipped it this time.