Chandrababu Naidu walks out of NIC meet over Telangana

[1]

New Delhi: Not allowed to debate Telangana, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu on Monday walked out of National Integration Council meet. Making a sarcastic remark, he said Andhra Pradesh is burning because someone wants to reap political gains."I just wanted to know what was happening in the Centre, but I was interrupted midway. Andhra Pradesh is burning, people are agitating. Isn't this an issue to be raised at NIC?" he askedThe meeting being attended by all chief ministers is called to discuss various issues including the use of social media to promote national integreation. According to the agenda, the 148-member NIC will discuss safety and security of women, confidence- building measures taken to tackle communal disturbances.Earlier, addressing the meet, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked parties to refrain from taking advantage out of communal strife and said states should crackdown on elements fanning such violence irrespective of their political affiliations or influence. Underlining that the onus for preventing communal violence lies with the states, he said effective steps should be taken by the administration to ensure that small issues don't snowball into a big controversy.The proposed Communal Violence Bill that envisages empowering the Central government to send central forces unilaterally in case of communal disturbances, is also expected to be discussed in the meeting.