Chhattisgarh CM protests Binayak Sen role in plan panel

Putting pressure on the government against giving a role to ''convicted'' human rights activist Binayak Sen in the Planning Commission's steering committee on health, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh has dashed off a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying his government would not participate in the panel's meetings if Sen is inducted.

''I am constrained and pained to take a decision to not to attend any Planning Commission meeting till this matter is resolved,'' the chief minister said while seeking a review of the decision.

In the letter, copied to Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the Chhattisgarh chief minister says the plan panel is the highest policy making body of country, and ''needless to say, its institutional integrity is of paramount importance. In this backdrop, the nomination of Binayak Sen, who has been convicted for waging war against the state is shocking and against all norms and propriety.

''It is an accepted principle that any person convicted to life imprisonment cannot be nominated as a member of any national level forum or committee, and there have been no precedents of this,'' Raman Singh said.

He further told the prime minister, ''As you have declared on many occasions, left wing extremism is the biggest threat to internal security and democracy of our country. The decision to take Binayak Sen on this committee will confound the people at large at this critical juncture when we are fighting a major battle against left wing extremism with the help and support of the union government.

''It appears strange that no other name in the entire country could be found for nomination in the aforesaid committee. Moreover, the so called contribution of Binayak Sen to the health sector has been hugely exaggerated, and there is little on the ground to support it,'' the chief minister said.

 Dr Sen has been nominated to the panel's steering committee on health where he will give his input for the 12th Plan on dealing with malnutrition among children in the tribal areas.