Chennai:
Tamil Nadu leader J Jayalalithaa has made it clear that she will not attend a conference of chief ministers on internal security scheduled to be held in New Delhi on June 5. The annual event is presided over by the Prime Minister.
She has given a detailed explanation for her absence in a strongly-worded letter to the Prime Minister, in which she alleges that "Chief Ministers constantly guillotined to cut short their speeches." (
Read full letter) Ms Jayalalithaa says she will designate a minister to deliver her address at the session.
In December, she stormed out of a meeting headed by the Prime Minister because a red light came on during her speech, indicating that she had exceeded the 10-minute limit. That meeting of the National Development Council was attended by all chief ministers. She referenced that incident in her letter today, writing that she was forced to cut her speech "in a humiliating manner."
In her note to Dr Manmohan Singh, Ms Jayalalithaa has said that leaders of states are not allowed to contribute at these gatherings. "The current exercise seems to get Chief Ministers to rubber stamp pre-decided measures," she writes.
"This conference too, carries a long and weighty agenda of 12 subjects. Uttering just their titles would in itself take 10 minutes which, unfortunately, is the time being cavalierly allotted to the Chief Ministers to present their views", she said in the letter.