Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wrote to Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar reminding him that she was the elected head of “a proud Indian state” while he had been nominated and his position “ornamental”, mounting a counter-offensive after months of repeated attacks on her government.
Dhankhar has been issuing statements, whose contents have often echoed those of the BJP, alleging mishandling of the pandemic by the state government.
In her five-page letter, Mamata asked the governor to “judge yourself”.
The chief minister drew attention to Dhankhar’s letter to her on April 20, her response on April 21, and a text message he had sent her on April 22.
“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 a nominated governor,” Mamata wrote.
She quoted several statements of B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, in the Constituent Assembly in 1949 recognising the powers of governors as “so nominal, so nominal, his position so ornamental”.
Mamata also cited several observations by the Sarkaria Commission.
“In view of the above, you have to judge yourself whether: a) your direct attacks on me; b) your direct attacks on my ministers and officers; c) your tone, tenor and language, which, in the mildest words of extreme moderation, deserve to be characterised as unparliamentary; d) your holding of press conferences against the state government itself (of which you are governor!); e) your repeated and consistent interference in the administration of my ministries and departments; make it clear as to who has flagrantly transgressed constitutional dharma and even basic norms of decency between constitutional functionaries,” she wrote.
Sources in the ruling dispensation said Mamata, busy spearheading the state’s war effort against the pandemic, had “had enough”.
A senior Trinamul Congress leader pointed out how the chief minister — otherwise among the fiercest critics of Narendra Modi and the saffron camp — had maintained restraint since Covid-19 had assumed serious proportions in India.
“But that courtesy was not reciprocated, even in this hour of unprecedented crisis that is Covid-19,” said the Trinamul leader.
He said Mamata had been losing patience over the past few weeks, as Dhankhar started “going out of his way” to endorse the BJP state unit, and went on an overdrive to repeatedly accuse her of mishandling the state’s fight against the pandemic.
“Dhankhar has started not only to echo the BJP’s propaganda but also going further than the party’s state unit leaders…. We always knew what he was sent here for, but he has been crossing all limits… limits laid down meticulously by the Constitution,” said the Trinamul leader.
“From the beginning of his stint here (since July 30 last year), he has been making deliberate attempts to insult and malign the government. But during the pandemic, he took discourtesy to a whole new level,” the Trinamul leader said.
Late in the evening, Dhankhar issued a statement alleging “total failure” on the part of the chief minister on “compliance of constitutional prescriptions qua the constitutional head”.
The governor said he would hold a media conference on Friday to “make full disclosure of details and documentation that will startle all”.
“The Constitution does not allow any Constitutional functionary to be ‘law unto oneself’ and the State cannot be run like a ‘fiefdom’. It has to be governed with complete adherence to Constitutional prescriptions,” Dhankhar said in the statement.
Rollback call
Mamata told NDTV on Thursday that she was in favour of a total withdrawal of the lockdown in phases within a fortnight from May 4. “The panic virus is as bad as the (novel) coronavirus,” she told the channel.
“As a citizen and TMC chief, I want the lockdown to be scaled back,” Mamata said. “Lift 25 per cent of the lockdown in a week beginning May 4, reopen 50 per cent in the second week after May 4, and total rollback should happen in two weeks after May 4.”
