4 states skip high-level meeting

New Delhi: The chief ministers of four southern states — Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala — did not attend a high-level meeting to discuss ways to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, citing official commitments for their absence.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra also skipped the meeting chaired by President Ram Nath Kovind’

The four states are Opposition-ruled states. Tamil Nadu was the only representative from the south at the meeting.

“We received an intimation (about the meeting) at AP Bhavan only late in the evening yesterday. Also, we have already scheduled our Cabinet meeting. We will send a letter to the Centre expressing our inability to attend (the conference), but we assure it of all our cooperation for the event,” a statement issued by Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu’s media cell said.

The committee for the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi has 115 members and the chief ministers are the ex-officio members.

The committee is mandated to approve policies, plans, programmes and also supervise and guide the commemoration of Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary in 2019.

Sources disclosed Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had cited the state Cabinet meeting as the reason, while Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said he was busy with the Assembly election in the state. Telang-ana CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao had a scheduled meeting with SP’s Akhilesh Yadav over the TRS chief’s plan to forge a non-Congress, non-BJP political alternative.