The chief minister on Saturday claimed she was humiliated as she was not allowed to speak at the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi. She alleged that her microphone was switched off within five minutes into her speech for which she staged a walkout.

Moving the special notice, Bhunia, the Water Resources Investigation and Development Minister, said it was against the spirit of cooperative federalism “which has now relegated to switching off the microphone”.

Bhunia said that the House expressed its anguish over the treatment meted out to the chief minister during the course of the NITI Aayog meeting.
Minister of State for Finance Chandrima Bhattacharya said CM’s humiliation is also humiliation of the state.

Backing it, the chief minister said: “(Andhra Pradesh CM) Chandrababu (Naidu) was allowed to speak for 20-25 minutes at the NITI Aayog meeting. But the microphone was switched off within five minutes of my time.”

Opposing the notice, BJP MLA Shankar Ghosh said that whatever the CM said to mediapersons after coming out of the NITI Aayog meeting could not be officially discussed in the Assembly. He said whatever Banerjee said was not official as she spoke outside the official meeting of NITI Aayog.

Later, the BJP legislators staged a walkout from the assembly saying that the chief minister will have to withdraw the statement and the reason she cited what transpired at the NITI Aayog meeting was “untrue”.

Earlier, Speaker Biman Banerjee had suspended the Question Hour session to facilitate discussion on the special notice.