Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale on Wednesday took to X to flag how the front page of a NITI Aayog report has shown Bihar as West Bengal.
Sharing the screenshot of the report, a four-page summary about West Bengal, Gokhale took a potshot at the Modi government, adding how "the government of India cannot even place West Bengal on a map".
Further continuing his attack on the premier policy think tank and linking the glitch with the NRC issue, Gokhale said, "BJP has 12 MPs from Bengal including 2 Union Ministers. And yet, their govt shamelessly shows Bihar as Bengal on a map. BJP has been targeting and harassing Bengalis in every state ruled by them. Our leader & CM Mamata Banerjee has also exposed how the Modi Govt wants to impose NRC in Bengal out of fear of losing elections."
NITI Aayog is not new to such controversies.
The think tank's Covid pandemic response planning in 2020 was under the scanner for reportedly being over-reliant on assumptions.
Niti Aayog member VK Paul had predicted zero cases after May 2020, but a surge in cases around the country had proved the think tank's number cruching wrong.
In 2023, NITI Aayog's Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) in India had thrown light on a significant decline from 29.17% in 2013-14 to 11.28% in 2022-23. This assessment had led to opposition parties, especially the Congress, flagging issues with the methodology, sample size with a glare on the new criteria.
In July 2024, the SDG India Index had also stirred a controversy. The report had put Tamil Nadu's full immunisation coverage at 85.13%, which reportedly was far below the state's actual 95%. Pointing to the discrepancies in the data, the state had raised the issue with the Union ministry of health and family welfare.
