West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar hit out at the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government saying that the state is moving away from the path of the Constitution and is virtually on fire. The Governor made these comments on Mahaparinirvan Diwas, after he paid floral tributes to Dr BR Ambedkar at Red Road.
"As the constitutional head of West Bengal, I am deeply disturbed, concerned and pained that the governance in the state is getting away from the path of Constitution. It is distancing from rule of law," said Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
He added, “I call upon them to engage into soul searching get into the proper mode of rule of law spare time at the earliest occasion update the Governor on the alarming law and order situation. The state is virtually on fire and they seem to b fiddling politically.”
The Governor also spoke about political killings, citing examples of BJP supporters allegedly at the mercy of TMC supporters.
“We cannot have this kind of a political culture of political violence and political vendetta and the root cause of this is that the state officials who work for the TMC government. Even though they are public servants, they are positioning themselves as political workers. They are supposed to be politically neutral but they are not. When such things are happening then the situation is bound to go out of control," Jagdeep Dhankar said.
"The lower rank police officers are working in helplessness but till now it has not affected some of the high ranking officials. I ask all of them to please fall in line since no one is above the law,” added the Governor.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) was quick to retort. Veteran leader Kalyan Banerjee said, “Do you take him seriously? Does he take himself seriously? The state government and the ruling party has a serial going on against the Governor. Enjoy the serial don’t be serious about it. Our Governor is not wearing gloves, the Governor has the huge backing of the Indian constitution and they will continue doing what they are here to do.”
The Governor has been attacking Mamata and her administration on several occasions, though the TMC administration and the West Bengal Chief Minister dismiss his comments from time to time.
However, the TMC also knows that with six months to go for the Assembly elections, the party is doing all it can to save its image and keep the voters' confidence intact to combat the growing influence of the BJP.
