Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M.K. Stalin on Sunday backed his West Bengal counterpart and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee’s call to hold a convention of Chief Ministers of non-BJP ruled States.
Mr. Stalin tweeted that Ms. Banerjee had telephoned him to share her concern and anguish on the constitutional overstepping and brazen misuse of power by the Governors of non-BJP ruled States. “She suggested for a meeting of Opposition CMs. I assured her of DMK’s commitment to uphold State autonomy. Convention of Opposition CMs will soon happen out of Delhi,” Mr. Stalin said. Earlier on Sunday, Mr. Stalin courted controversy for saying West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar’s move to prorogue the Assembly session was “without any propriety” and went against the established norms and conventions.
“The ‘symbolic’ head of the State should be the role model to uphold the constitution. Beauty of democracy lies in extending mutual respect to each other,” Mr. Stalin said in a Twitter post.
Governor clarifies
Countering this, Mr. Dhankhar clarified that the Assembly was prorogued at the express request of the State government.
“Find it unusually expedient to respectfully invite indulgent attention of TN CM @mkstalin that his extremely harsh hurtful observations are not in the least in conformity with facts- attached order, he replied from his official Twitter handle. Assembly was prorogued at express request @MamataOfficial,” Mr. Dhankhar replied. He also tagged the official Twitter account of Raj Bhavan Tamil Nadu.
