Nitish Kumar and P Chidambaram at the chief ministers’ conference on internal security in New Delhi on Wednesday. Telegraph picture

New Delhi, June 5: Consensus eluded yet again on the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) at the chief ministers’ conference on internal security today even though the Centre modified the anti-terror body by taking it out of the ambit of the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

Several non-Congress chief ministers, including Bihar’s Nitish Kumar, Gujarat’s Narendra Modi, Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee and Chhattisgarh’s Raman Singh — who have been the fiercest opponents of the NCTC — rejected the new draft on NCTC and termed it a “poorly conceived” idea and an attack on federalism.

“The views of the state government are well known. Like many other states, Bengal too is of the opinion that the proposed version of NCTC upsets the federal structure of the country,” Mamata Banerjee said in her speech, read by state finance minister Amit Mitra.

The controversial clause which empowered NCTC to carry out search-and-seizure operations and arrests in any part of the country has been modified.

According to the revised NCTC order the operation against a terrorist or terrorist groups will be carried out through or in conjunction with the state police force.

“The new draft still suffers from several serious flaws,” Nitish said in the meeting.

Last year Mamata, along with Modi and Nitish, had rejected outright the proposal to set up the NCTC, saying the overarching body the government had announced through an order would violate the country’s federal structure.

According to the new draft, the NCTC would now work directly under the Union home ministry and be headed by a DGP-level officer instead of being located within the IB as proposed earlier.

The NCTC director will now report directly to the Union home ministry rather than the IB. Under the original plan, the director was to be an officer of additional director rank from the IB, reporting to the director of the intelligence agency.

A copy of the diluted version the NCTC was circulated among the states yesterday, ahead of the chief ministers’ security conference.

The ambitious NCTC is a pet project of former Union home minister P. Chidambaram. “The NCTC has been removed from the IB as opposed by some chief ministers earlier. We have also modified some of its powers. I deeply regret that some chief ministers still oppose the NCTC even in its present form. I am afraid that we are not serious about fighting terror and if this attitude continues then the country will bleed from time to time,” Chidambaram said.

Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh expressed happiness that the proposed NCTC has been taken out of the IB ambit and brought under the home ministry but said it should be ratified by Parliament. “We are happy that the new NCTC proposes to bring it directly under the home ministry but we think it should be ratified by Parliament so that the anti-terror body becomes accountable to people. We are opposed to the NCTC in its present form,” he said.

Modi said the proposed NCTC was not in congruence with the principles of federalism. “It is not clear how big it is going to be, what forces are going to comprise it, how exactly it is going to function and which statute will it derive its powers from,” he said.