West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has called for the abolition of the NITI Aayog, a public policy think tank established by the Modi government. She made the comments ahead of attending a NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi on July 27, which most chief ministers from the INDIA bloc are boycotting.

Banerjee said she felt their voices should be raised on a common platform. "I thought it is my duty to raise this voice at least on a common platform though I know the NITI Aayog has no financial powers," she said. 

"Since the NITI Aayog has been planned, I have not seen a single work being done because they don't have any power. Earlier, there was a Planning Commission. As a chief minister... at that time I saw there was a system," she said. 

Banerjee said the NITI Aayog should be scrapped. 

"I will raise my voice to stop this NITI Aayog. They do not have any financial implication. They cannot do anything, only hold meeting once a year to show their face. Please bring back the Planning Commission again," Banerjee said. 

"It was a plan of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, and since Independence, the Planning Commission has worked a lot for the country," she said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the NITI Aayog's ninth Governing Council meeting on July 27 which will focus on making India a developed nation by 2047.

Several INDIA bloc CMs have announced they will skip the meet as a mark of protest against the Union budget which, they alleged, was "anti-federal" in spirit and "extremely discriminatory" towards their states.

The list includes Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin of the DMK, Kerala Chief Minister and CPI(M) leader Pinarayi Vijayan, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann of the Aam Aadmi Party and all three Congress chief ministers – Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telegana’s Revanth Reddy.

(With PTI Inputs)