The Telangana government on Monday skipped the second conference of finance ministers being held in Andhra Pradesh's Vijayawada over the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission.
The state had also skipped the first conference of finance ministers of southern states, held in April.
Apart from Telangana, finance ministers of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha, Mizoram and Sikkim also did not turn up.
Finance ministers from 11 states with common ideology on fiscal federalism were invited for the meeting, hosted by Andhra Pradesh, of which representatives from Puducherry, Delhi, Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal were present at the meeting.
The first meeting was hosted by Kerala and included finance ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and Karnataka who met to discuss their concerns over the Terms of Reference of the 15th Finance Commission.
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has been trying to project an 'alternative' front to the Congress and BJP in recent months. However, the Congress has accused him of adopting a pro-BJP approach to split opposition votes. Rao's decision to skip a meeting on the emotive issue will only strengthen suspicions of his critics.
The 15th Finance Commission, which was set up in November 2017, recognised population as an important criterion for distribution of taxes.
The body had said that it would use data from the 2011 Census, while making recommendations for the five-year period, which begins in 2020.
However, the southern states wanted the recommendations to be based on the 1971 Census data.
The southern states raised concerns over the population-based formula for tax sharing between the Centre and states.