Chandrababu Naidu skips meet on Gandhi fete despite PM invite

Amaravati: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu politely refused an invitation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend a meeting of the national committee on 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi organised on Wednesday. 

The AP government sent a letter to the Central government explaining that the Chief Minister could not attend the meet since he was busy in attending the pre-scheduled cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The absence of the Chief Minister at the meet to which he was invited by the Prime Minister assumed political overtones in the wake of ruling party TDP coming out of NDA government at the Centre. 

Satish Chandra, special chief secretary to Chief Minister wrote a letter addressing to Raghavendra Singh, secretary to ministry of culture in this regard.

“We thank you for extending invitation on behalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to participate and share our thoughts on preparation for celebration of 150th Birth Anniversary of Gandhi,” he said in the letter. 

He further informed the Central government that while the state government definitely wanted to actively participate in this discussion, unfortunately the Chief Minister had to attend the Cabinet meeting to take decision on policy matters, which was pre-scheduled.

The state government is actively participating in the Swachh Bharat programme and set the target to be Open Defecation Free state by October 2, 2018, he noted.