At a time when West Bengal is battling the spread of COVID -19 infection, the relations between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar reached a new nadir on Thursday with Ms. Banerjee writing to him saying the “Governor seems to have forgotten that he is a nominated representative and she an elected Chief Minister”.
“You appear to have forgotten that I am an elected Chief Minister of a proud Indian State. You also seem to have forgotten that you are nominated Governor,” Ms. Banerjee wrote in the five-page letter. Minutes after receiving the letter, Mr. Dhankhar took to twitter calling it “outrageous, factually wrong and constitutionally infirm”.
The public spat comes after differences between the two have increased over issues pertaining to the pandemic. The Chief Minister quoted BR Ambedkar’s remarks in the Constituent Assembly and the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission. She said in view of these comments “you have to judge yourself” on whether direct attacks on me and my Ministers and “your repeated and consistent interference in the administration...makes it clear who has fragrantly transgressed constitutional dharma.”
Ms. Banerjee quoted extensively from the Constitution and added her analyses to stress her point. “You have to judge for yourself whether your direct attacks on me...on my Ministers and officers, your tone, tenor and language which in the mildest words of extreme moderation, deserve to be characterised as unparliamentary.” She also blamed him for holding press conferences against the State government.
The Chief Minister, while making the letter public, said: “The people of this State and of this nation judge themselves who has done what and who is in breach of elementary norms of constitutional behaviour.” She made public the Governor’s letter of April 20, where he said the situation of the public distribution system has reached an alarming level. “The emerging scenario is indicative of PDS scam engulfing the State.” Another communication made public by the Chief Minister is an SMS sent by the Governor on April 22, which according to the CM is “unprecedented in tone, tenor and language”.
On Thursday Governor Dhankhar urged the Chief Minister to “ensure seamless way forward for Central teams”. In another tweet, he shared a letter by non-resident doctors of West Bengal highlighting “gross under testing in West Bengal”. Ever since Mr. Dhankhar assumed the office, differences between the Raj Bhavan and the Secretariat have come to fore on a regular basis, but on this occasion the Chief Minister and the Governor are targeting each other when the administration should be geared to fight the spread of the contagious viral infection.
