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Updated: Jun 15, 2019 08:26 IST

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is unlikely to attend the fifth governing council meeting of Niti Aayog to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Saturday.

“There is no information so far about the chief minister’s plan to travel to New Delhi on Saturday. It has not been scheduled in the CM’s programme as of now,” an official spokesperson of the chief minister’s office (CMO) told Hindustan Times.

An official familiar with the development said till Thursday, KCR, as the chief minister is popularly known, was getting ready to attend the Niti Aayog meeting to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“He even instructed the officials to prepare a detailed note which he was planning to present at the governing council meeting. He was keen on showcasing the Rythu Bandhu scheme, which has become a role model for several states. But it is not known why he decided against attending the Niti Aayog meeting,” he said.

When contacted, senior Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader and former MP B Vinod Kumar said as per his information, KCR was not going to Delhi to attend the Niti Aayog meeting. “I am not aware of the exact reason. But I think the chief minister was too preoccupied with the arrangements for the inauguration of Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project, the biggest in the country, on June 21,” he said.

The Telangana chief minister on Friday went to Mumbai to meet his Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis and invite him to the inauguration of the Kaleshwaram project being built on the Godavari river. He is also planning to go to Vijayawada next week to personally invite Andhra Pradesh chief minister and YSR Congress party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy to the function.

Unconfirmed reports from TRS sources said KCR had dropped his plan to attend the Niti Aayog meeting as he was upset at being denied an appointment with the Prime Minister for a one-on-one meeting. “KCR also wanted to invite the Prime Minister for the inauguration of Kaleshwaram project, but apparently, he could not get the appointment,” a TRS source said.