D Raja justifies INDIA bloc CMs boycotting NITI Aayog meet, blames Centre

CPI general secretary D Raja Saturday justified the decision of several chief ministers to boycott the Governing Council meetings of the NITI Aayog, claiming that certain actions of the Centre are behind their move.

Taxes and funds were not being shared properly by the central government, Raja alleged.

"The CMs who are boycotting the NITI Aayog meeting have certain issues. There are very genuine issues. The Central government's actions were responsible for it," Raja told reporters here.

Chief ministers of the INDIA bloc -- Stalin (DMK), Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan (CPI-M), Punjab's Bhagwant Mann (Aam Aadmi Party), Congress's Siddaramaiah (Karnataka), Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu (Himachal Pradesh) and Revanth Reddy (Telangana), and Jharkhand's Hemant Soren (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) -- skipped the NITI Aayog meeting.

Stating that the Constitution defines India (Bharat), as a union of states, Raja said: "It means the union government should treat all the state governments equally and there ..