When NITI Aayog met this time, 10 chief ministers kept off the crucial meeting that deliberated on future planning of the nation. Unity of purpose was the first casualty. While they sent their representatives, this was less of a consolation. The Prime Minister laid out his government’s vision for the nation that touches ‘hundred years’ of Independence in 2047, with a resolve to make it the world’s third largest power. With major opposition stalwarts keeping off the meeting, an added irritant was the ‘walkout’ by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, as she had not been given “sufficient time” to hold forth. Yet, she pressed home some significant points, namely that this entity does not have teeth since it has not been accorded any authority regarding finances – much unlike the Planning Commission that Jawaharlal Nehru started shortly to roll out the five-year plans. One of the first acts of Narendra Modi as PM in 2014 was to dissolve and replace it with Niti Aayog. The five-year-plan process has altogether been done away with. Mamata Banerjee rightly sought its restoration or a widening of the financial powers for the new entity.
In the past 10 years, nothing goes to show that the planning process in this country is better focused. With Modi emphasizing on long-term planning up until 2047, chances are also of a culture of drag, unless short term targets are fixed and these goals achieved. Like the Bullet Train project and Make In India or the Smart City project, the net result could be discouraging to the nation. Modi is additionally saddled by the constraints of the coalition politics at the Centre where, as per his own admission, it now is “rule by consensus” – a euphemism for pandering to the interests of pressure groups within the NDA. States like Bihar and Andhra Pradesh are bound to seek their pound of flesh as regional stalwarts like Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu are providing the much-needed oxygen to Modi. This was precisely what most chief ministers who kept off the Niti Aayog meeting were miffed at. They were unhappy with the way the Union Budget ignored their states while lavishing funds for Modi’s allies. Naidu, for one, is capable of putting a knife on the Modi establishment’s neck and extracting what he wants from it. Even in the present scenario, Modi has sufficient room for manoeuvring to neutralize those who browbeat the weak NDA dispensation. But, just as the PM allowed the GST bill to drag on for want of sufficient parliamentary numbers, nothing exhilarating need be expected from him now. He could be depended on, rather, to remain tied to “coalition dharma” and “consensus politics.” The electorate is to blame; they have brought him to such a pass.
