Jagdeep Dhankar gave Mamata Banerjee a written response to his 9 page letter (File)
Calcutta:
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar complained that Mamata Banerjee’s government is pulling the purse strings for Raj Bhavan’s spending so hard that he might not be able to offer cookies with tea to the media at the next press meeting.
Mr. Dhankar said he had requested a fund of 30-40 lakh beyond the budget allocation for Raj Bhavan. But the Home Secretary responded by refusing the funds, he said, citing constraints due to the coronavirus pandemic and Cyclone Amphan to “a governor who is a teetotaler and a vegetarian.”
“Kya mazak ho raha hai (What is this joke) “, said the governor in passing briefly during his press meeting Monday afternoon.” Free distribution of money but not even Rs 30 lakh for Raj Bhavan!
The explosion came at the end of a tirade against the chief minister for rushing to the rescue, so to speak, of the director general of the state police. Earlier this month, the governor wrote to DGP Virender asking for clarification on some public policy issues and asked him to come and meet with him.
What seems to have upset Mr. Dhankar is that the DGP did not show up on the three different dates assigned to him and instead sent a brief written response to the governor. The Chief Minister shortly after wrote a 9-page letter to the Governor questioning his power to demand information directly from officials in his government and the tone and content of his letter to the DGP.
“It’s time to disinfect the electric halls,” Dhankar said, hitting both the chief minister and the senior police official. Accusing the police of becoming “a threat instead of a protector of human rights,” the governor said the government “was now operating on police crutches” and the police were “in bondage and crawling mode. “.
“The mounting of electronic surveillance” turned Bengal into a “face-to-face state,” Dhankar said, adding that people in the state were wary of making a normal phone call for fear of being bugged.
“Bengal now has all the attributes of a police state,” he said.
This is not the governor’s first outburst of anger against the government of Bengal. But he also issued something of a warning saying that he “might have to look at Article 154 (1) of the Constitution” which says: “The executive power of the state will be vested in the governor and will be exercised by him. either directly or by officers subordinate to it in accordance with this Constitution. “
Sougata Roy, a senior congressman from Trinamool, said the governor was going beyond his constitutional position and insulting the state with his threats.
“The governor is only trying to strengthen the hands of the center against the state,” he said, adding that “the governor violates all constitutional standards.”
Mr Dhankar said: “If anyone thinks the governorship is an ornamental, emasculated, rubber post office, it is not. This office has enough power to preserve the Constitution.”
He gave a written response to Mamata Banerjee who left for a three-day tour of North Bengal on Monday afternoon, his first visit to the station after the outbreak of the pandemic. Mamata Banerjee can respond after returning to Kolkata.
The duel between the elected head of government and the governor is expected to continue until the 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal.
