CM hosts lunch for Farooq

BHUBANESWAR: Ahead of the chief ministers meeting on the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) convened by the Centre, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s luncheon meeting with Union Minister and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah assumes significance.Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah who arrived here on Tuesday to attend a programme, was invited to Naveen Niwas, the residence of Naveen for lunch. The media was barred.While officials described Naveen’s meeting with Abdullah as a courtesy call, sources believed that the ruling BJD chief took up the NCTC issue with the NC leader.The meeting comes barely two days after his talks here with Union Minister of State for Rural Development and NCP leader Agatha Sangma.While Naveen met two non-Congress and non-BJP leaders in a span of three days, his scheduled meeting with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa on April 6 was postponed.Naveen was earlier scheduled to go to Chennai on Thursday to attend the stone laying ceremony of Odisha Bhawan there.The meeting of non-Congress and non-BJP leaders ahead of chief ministers meet was significant in view of Naveen’s February 15 statement that there was need for an alternative alliance to the scam-ridden Congress-led UPA and communally tainted BJP-headed NDA.Abdullah, during a nation-wide debate over NCTC had sided with Naveen and dubbed the Centre’s act of notifying the formation of NCTC without consulting states as a mistake. Naveen closing ranks with NC and NCP, both partners of the UPA, was viewed politically significant against the backdrop of his move to unite non-Congress and non-BJP parties in the campaign against the NCTC.Ten non-Congress chief ministers, including Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar, and Telugu Desam president Chandrababu Naidu had backed Naveen’s stand, forcing the UPA government to defer functioning of NCTC from March 16.