West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar visited the state Assembly on Thursday and expressed his anger and frustration about the gate meant for VVIPs locked and held a press conference outside the gate. A number of ruling party leaders questioned the timing and purpose of this unusual visit as Thursday was the second consecutive day that the sessions in the Assembly had been adjourned. The leaders said this was all the more glaring because it was due to the Governor not clearing some bills that the sessions had to be adjourned on Wednesday and Thursday.
Later in the day, Chief minister Mamata Banerjee said she would see where the “fight” would lead to. “Lorai cholte thakuk, dekhi ki hoy,” she said at the sidelines of a business meet in Kolkata, which she inaugurated in the afternoon. “There is an attempt to run a parallel government. What the Governor in Maharashtra is going, he [Dhankar] is doing even more… the person for whom the Assembly had to be adjourned for two days, is being made to do all this…” Banerjee said.
On Wednesday, Dhankar had told news agency ANI in an interview that he had decided to visit the Assembly on Thursday. This was after Speaker Biman Banerjee had announced the adjournment of the sessions on Tuesday itself. Dhankar said on Wednesday that he had informed the Speaker about his decision to visit the Assembly on Thursday.
The dramatic events of Thursday unfolded at 10 am, when the Governor went to the Assembly and said he found the gate meant for the Governor and President closed. He said that the West Bengal MLAs had “shamed” the state legislature and the state by not being present, adding that he had informed the Speaker about his decision to visit the Assembly, and the latter had invited Dhankar and his wife for lunch there. But the Speaker was absent and he had later said he had to attend some other work, claimed Dhankar. The Governor said no session being held in the Assembly did not mean lawmakers should not be present there.
Asked about the reasons the bills hadn’t been cleared by him for which the sessions had to be adjourned, Dhankar said he was not merely a rubber stamp and wanted to examine the content.
Apart from the chief minister, other leaders of the ruling party, Trinamool Congress reacted sharply to Dhankar’s allegations. Partha Chatterjee, the party’s general secretary said that if the Governor was so concerned about the state, he should ask the Centre to clear the funds due to the state government.
“He can go anywhere, but not with state government funds,” Chatterjee argued. “He could have gone to the Assembly when the sessions are on. Instead he went when there were no sessions. Yesterday, he went to Calcutta University when the senate meeting had been cancelled,” Chatterjee said.
He said that if the Governor was interested in the smooth running of the administration and cared about strengthening democracy, he could have called the persons handling the bills, questioned and made suggestions and cleared the bills instead of leading to a situation that the Assembly sessions had to be adjourned. “His attitude is such… that it seems like wanting to run a parallel, alternative administration,” Chatterjee said.
“He is going everywhere, standing there and posing for pictures,” the Trinamool Congress general secretary said. “He is doing the work of visitors… I think he should go to the zoo, there is plenty of scope for interacting with people there,” the minister said.
