Governor CV Ananda Bose met Union home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi, hardly couple of months ahead of panchayat polls scheduled April, May in Bengal.

Political observers felt that the meeting between Shah and Bose is significant, particularly when the opposition parties BJP, CPM-led Left Front and Congress are intensifying their agitations against several important issues like the chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s reluctance to meet state government employees’ demand to hike Dearness Allowance (DA), corruptions in teachers’, group C and D staff recruitments in schools, leading to arrests of several ruling party leaders and deteriorating law and order situation.

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Nothing has been learnt about what issues were discussed in the meeting held on Friday so far.

The observers felt that the governor might have focused on the alleged deteriorating law and order situation in Bengal particularly at a time when the opposition parties demand for deployment of central force for violencefree rural polls this time.

Citing the instance of the recently-held violence-free bypoll in Sagardighi Assembly constituency, the opposition parties felt that deployment of central force in every polling booth could make the forthcoming rural polls free and fair otherwise there would be a rerun of massive violence unleashed allegedly by the state machinery and Trinamul Congress.

Sujan Chakraborty, CPM central committee member, said, “We don’t know anything about issues discussed in the meeting in New Delhi. Our demand is to establish rule of law in Bengal. People had experienced a reign of terror sponsored by Trinamul Congress goons and state police during the last panchayat polls held in 2018.”

Dr Shantanu Sen, Trinamul Congress MP, said, “Governor can always meet the Union home minister. We don’t know about agendas discussed in the meeting. Everybody knows Bengal is the safest democratic state in the country. You can check how law and order is deteriorating in BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.”

Bose had also visited Delhi in February and met the VicePresident Jagdeep Dhankhar.