The winter session of the West Bengal Assembly was abruptly adjourned on Tuesday amid Trinamool Congress’ charges that Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was “wilfully withholding” his assent to a clutch of Bills, and the latter dismissing the allegation as “dirty politics” by the ruling party.
Scores of Trinamool MLAs gathered near the statue of B.R. Ambedkar on the Assembly premises, holding placards and raising slogans against the delay in passage of legislations, particularly The West Bengal State Commission for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Bill, 2019. The legislators alleged that the Governor was delaying important Bills which needed to be tabled in the Assembly for discussion.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Partha Chatterjee said that the despite speaking to Raj Bhavan on numerous occasions, the Bill had not been cleared. “The Raj Bhavan is calling our officials and asking several questions,” Mr. Chatterjee said.
The Governor in a communication to the Speaker said that under Article 338 and 338A of the Constitution, the field (of the Bill) has been occupied by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and National Commission of Schedule Tribes. In the six-page communication, the Governor highlighted that he accorded highest priority to legislative work and that he had raised certain questions about the Bill to the officials for which he had not yet received any response.
The Governor accused the Trinamool Congress of taking political mileage of the developments. “That they have involved the Assembly in this is most unfortunate,” he said.
Meanwhile, the State government on Tuesday tabled in the Assembly a new rule under which universities in Bengal will have the power to call meetings of their highest decision-making bodies without consulting the State’s Governor, their Chancellor. The government denied that the rule will have an impact on the powers of the Chancellor.
Mr. Dhankhar has been at loggerheads with the TMC government over a number of issues, since assuming charge as the Governor.
(With inputs from PTI)
