Six non-BJP CMs skip meet on clean India drive

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 19

Politics overshadowed the second meeting of the sub-group of chief ministers on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan here today. Six chief ministers of non-BJP-ruled states skipped the meeting aimed at realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of making India clean by October 2, 2019.

Chief Ministers of Delhi (AAP), Karnataka (Congress), Bihar (JD-U), Sikkim (Sikkim Democratic Front), West Bengal (TMC) and Uttarakhand (Congress) were conspicuous by their absence at the meeting chaired by subgroup convener and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

Besides Naidu, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Maharastra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla attended the meeting. The absentee chief ministers were represented by either their ministers or senior bureaucrats.

Chandrababu Naidu tried to play down the absence of non-BJP chief ministers. “We should rise above party politics to accomplish the goal of clean India by 2019. Anyway, the chief ministers were represented by either ministers or senior officers, who gave constructive suggestions aimed at replicating the best practices and technologies for achieving the desired target under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan,” he said.

Khattar said this was not the platform to discuss politics and all states should join hands to work towards implementing the decisions taken by the NITI Aayog to make India clean. “The Prime Minister has set a mission of making India clean by October 2, 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and our efforts should be directed towards that goal,” he said.

Earlier, Naidu stressed on the need to have public-private partnership achieve the target. He said ideas and suggestions had been received at the meeting to generate energy from waste and garbage.

Khattar’s suggestion of introducing sanitation as a subject from the primary education level to inculcate the habit of cleanliness right from childhood was also under consideration by the subgroup, which would submit its report by the end of the next month.