West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar  |  Photo Credit: ANI
Kolkata: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar’s rift with the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government continues. A day after party leaders indicated that they were mulling a censure motion against the Governor, the latter on Sunday urged the CM to “give information” and sit for a dialogue with him as “mandated by the Constitution”.
“I have appealed to CM Mamata Banerjee that democracy survives on dialogue. We have to ensure to save democracy from violence. The constitutional duty of the Chief Minister is to give information to the Governor, but it has not been performed ever since I became Governor,” Dhankhar contended. Democracy, he added, survived on the “rule of law” and not that of an individual.
“West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar in the spirit and essence of Constitution on punya tithi of Gandhi ji urged Hon’ble CM Mamata Banerjee for dialogue as dialogue and mutual deliberative stance at the level of constitutional functionaries is vitality of democracy and rule of law,” read a tweet posted to his official handle.
A day earlier he had summoned Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi yet again to the Raj Bhavan on January 31 to get a briefing on an incident in Jhargram district involving Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Suvendu Adhikari. The BJP leader had contended in a letter to the Governor that he was prevented from visiting Netai in Jhargram. Earlier, too, the governor had summoned Dwivedi to seek details of the incident, but the chief secretary did not turn up for the meeting.
Meanwhile, the ruling Trinamool Congress is mulling the possibility of bringing a motion against Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar in the Budget Session of the West Bengal Assembly. “We are planning to bring a censure motion against Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar. The way he has been insulting the Assembly and the speaker is unprecedented in the political history of Bengal. But we also need to check with constitutional experts on whether such a motion can be brought against the governor, its consequences,” news agency PTI had quoted the party lawmaker to say.