West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday urged Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar “to kindly refrain from making unwarranted statements and allow administration to conduct an impartial investigation to find out the truth” in connection with the violence in Birbhum district in which six women and two children were burnt to death.
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“Our State is always peaceful, barring a few sporadic incidents. But whenever an unfortunate incident happens, you leave no stone unturned to castigate and malign the State government. Your utterances and statements have political overtones which provide support to other political parties to browbeat the government,” Ms. Banerjee wrote in a letter addressed to the Governor.
The Governor was not forthcoming with his comments “whenever much more heinous incidents happened in BJP-ruled States and also in other parts of the country”, she stated.
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Hours after reports of the violence in Birbhum came to light, the Governor took to social media. “Horrifying violence and arson orgy #Rampurhat #Birbhum indicates state is in grip of violence culture and lawlessness. Already eight lives lost,” he tweeted, adding that he had sought an urgent update from the Chief Secretary on the matter. Mr. Dhankar also issued a video clip airing his views on the violence.
The Chief Minister in her communication to the Governor pointed out that one important TMC functionary, who was a “upa-pradhan of the gram panchayat, was brutally attacked and killed by some unknown miscreants. The political identity of the perpetrators of the crime is subject of investigation”. Like senior Ministers in her government, she stated that a larger political conspiracy to malign the image of the State could not be ruled out
“Moreover, fire in some houses resulted in loss of few precious lives. The possibility of a larger political conspiracy to malign the image of the State cannot be ruled out and investigation will be made to unearth all those who are behind the occurrence of the incident,” she wrote.