Calcutta, March 29: Mamata Banerjee has requested the Centre to “only discuss the NCTC” at a chief ministers’ meeting next month and expressed displeasure at Union home minister P. Chidambaram’s move to have a “host of issues” discussed.

“The Prime Minister had said in Parliament that the issue of the NCTC (the proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre) would be discussed exclusively with the chief ministers. But recently I got a letter from the home minister inviting me to the meeting on April 16 and I noticed there were nine or 10 items on the agenda. This is not what I had expected,” the Bengal chief minister told news channels this evening.

She said that she was both “surprised and astonished” at the agenda. “I would request that the meeting be called only to discuss the NCTC. Only after this is settled should the other issues be discussed. All the chief ministers should get the opportunity to speak. Clubbing everything would become a hotchpotch.”

A Union home ministry official said in Delhi tonight that if many chief ministers officially requested the agenda of the meeting to be confined to the NCTC, the proposal could be considered. “As of now, we have not got any written communication from any state,” he said.

Mamata also warned the Centre not to “interfere” in matters that are the preserve of states. “Law and order is a state subject. It is not good to impose or bulldoze in a federal structure.”

She said Trinamul Congress MPs did not vote on the NCTC-related amendments brought by the Opposition in Parliament recently as the party could not go against the UPA government. “We are part of the UPA so we can’t vote against it.”

“But it is the duty of the states to bring to the attention of the Centre any wrong decision or interference,” she added.

Yesterday, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying the meeting’s agenda should be limited to the NCTC and warning against attempts to deal with the issue in a “routine and perfunctory” manner.