As many as 10 states and UTs did not participate in the ninth Governing Council meeting of the NITI Aayog which was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, its CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam said on Saturday.
The meeting was attended by 26 participants including Chief Ministers and Lt Governors of UTs, he said while briefing the media.
The absentees were Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Puducherry, he said adding "It is their loss if they did not participate."
Regarding West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who walked out of the meeting, Subrahmanyam said her request to speak before lunch was accepted although her turn would have come in the afternoon going in the alphabetical order of the states.
The NITI Aayog CEO further said that when her time was up, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh just tapped the mic and she stopped speaking and walked out. Although officials of West Bengal government continued to attend the meeting
