How it feels when your opponents are showing more interest in your initiatives than your friends? Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now basking in that glory. His flagship mission Swachh Bharat is attracting the attention of Indian National Congress rather than his own party, it seems.

The third meeting held in Vidhan Soudha in Bengaluru to finalize the implementation of the Swachh Bharat mission is attended by all the three Congress Chief Ministers’ sub-group. However, the ruling party Chief Ministers of Maharashtra (Devendra Fadnavis), Sikkim (Pawan Kumar Chamling), Delhi (Arvind Kejriwal), West Bengal (Mamata Banerjee), Bihar (Nitesh Kumar), and Haryana (Manohar Lal Khattar) states gave the meeting a miss.

In fact, the meeting was supposed to be attended by a sub-group of 10 chief ministers from various states in India.

The group, chaired by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and NDA ally N Chandrababu Naidu, is planning just one more meeting in New Delhi before presenting its report to the PM by August 15.

Karnataka's chief minister Siddaramaiah, who made the opening remarks at the meet, made no bones about his support for the program, though he had earlier declined to chair this sub-group, as proposed by Modi. Siddaramaiah said: "Our government supports the vision of the Honorable Prime Minister of India in the Swachh Bharat Mission with the objective to achieve universal sanitation coverage, improved cleanliness and make India open defecation-free by 2019."

Harish Rawat of Uttarakhand and Lal Thankawla of Mizoram also endorsed the mission and its importance.

- Manohar