NCTC hits cold storage, Shinde admits differences persist

New Delhi: Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde today virtually admitted that anti-terror body NCTC will not be set up any time soon as some chief ministers continue to oppose it. Addressing a press conference, Shinde said he tried his best to get the consent of the chief ministers to set up the controversial National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) like his predecessor P Chidambaram did but failed.[caption id=“attachment_946401” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde. PTI[/caption] “I have removed all operational powers (of NCTC) and thought that there would not be any opposition to it now. But still some chief ministers continue to oppose it,” he said when asked about the status of the proposed anti-terror body. “I believe we should remain within our limits. We should not press too much. If they (CMs) do not want, let it be. We should not go ahead without the chief ministers’ consent,” he said. Asked whether his comments meant that the NCTC was over forever, Shinde said that he cannot say that but right now there is no movement on it due to the strong opposition of some of the chief ministers. Those who are opposing a watered-down proposal for NCTC include chief ministers Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal), Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Jayalalithaa (Tamil Nadu), Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) and Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) and Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. Even Congress chief ministers Prithviraj Chavan (Maharashtra), Siddaramaiah (Karnataka) and Tarun Gogoi (Assam) have expressed reservations to the revised proposal of NCTC. Sources said that in his concluding remarks at the 5 June Chief Ministers’ conference on internal security, the home minister had said a decision on setting up NCTC will be taken only after a full consensus. A political consensus even on a watered-down proposal for NCTC is unlikely any time soon and the anti-terror hub proposal seems to have gone into deep freeze. PTI