Bengal Governor says his speech was “censored”, as state finance minister goes “Live” on Budget day

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday took to the Twitter to express his surprise that his opening address for the Budget session this year was not shown “live” on television, while the state finance minister Amit Mitra presented the state Budget in the Assembly on Monday and the same restrictions did not apply.

Dhankhar wrote, “The State Finance Minister Dr Mitra’s budget speech was live while the address of the Governor under Article 176, an important occasion, in sharp deviation to practice was not allowed live coverage and media was also kept away. Leave to judgment of the people of the State!”
The Governor had on Friday opened the Budget session by reading out the speech drafted for him by the state government without deviating from it as was being speculated.

There were speculations surrounding his opening address as the Governor has been frequently on a collision course with the state and Trinamool Congress leaders have even accused him of acting like an “agent” of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Under this backdrop, it was speculated that Dhankhar would either omit the portions of speech which criticised the Central policies or add additional clauses after reading the speech. But Dhankhar had done nothing of the sort and ended all the speculations saying that he would never go against what was laid down in the Consitution.

The Governor’s address was not telecast live this time, though Dhankhar had not said anything on this on Friday, or even later. In fact, he had said that he had addressed his concerns over some administrative matters which he hoped the state would address soon.