West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has criticized chief minister Mamata Banerjee for what he alleged was an attempt to justify the gherao inside the House on Monday, the first day of the budget session. Dhankhar has also written to the assembly speaker, Biman Banerjee, for a meeting in the next three days as he claimed that the ruling party MLAs made him “suffer unprintable indigestible invectives”.
On 7 March, a ruckus unfolded inside the state assembly, where BJP MLAs protested against alleged violence during the civic polls by the Trinamul Congress (TMC). The governor was approached by several TMC MLAs who, as per chief minister Mamata Banerjee, saved democracy by convincing the governor to read his speech, ignoring the sloganeering by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs. Mr Dhankhar had read the first and last line of his speech which formally opens the House for a session.
Today, Mr Dhankhar shared a video featuring a speech by chief minister Mamata Banerjee where she is heard thanking her party’s ‘women brigade’, who saved the integrity of the state assembly and saved democracy. He criticized it by writing that there can be no justification for the gherao or blockade of the governor inside the hallowed precincts of the West Bengal legislative assembly.
Asking the CM to reflect on her words, he expressed surprise as he wrote: “Hon’ble CM applauding What! “Disorder” in the House! We all need to work to blossom democracy.” He has complained to the speaker, the ruling party Ministers/MLAs virtually subjecting Governor to “Gherao” and in the process also made him suffer “unprintable indigestible invectives”. “Indeed unusual that the ruling party will so stall the proceedings.”
He has named some TMC women MLAs and ministers who allegedly “trooped both sides around the seat of the Governor, physically secured inconvenient proximity with the Governor in a determined bid to have their ‘way’.” He has named Chandrima Bhattacharya, Dr Shashi Panja, Seuli Saha, Yeasmin Sabina, Jyotsna Mandi and Birbaha Hansda, Sabitri Mitra, Ratna Chatterjee, Usha Rani Mondal, Arundhuti Maitra (Lovely), Asima Patra, Nayna Bandopadhyay, Bina Mondal, Manju Basu and Rahima Mondal.
He alleged that senior ministers, particularly the parliamentary affairs minister, Partha Chatterjee, who ought to be engaged in restoring order in the treasury benches and the House, was himself in ‘threatening’ in the most unbecoming undignified form towards the governor, thereby contributing to the disorder.
“Opposition was protesting from the beginning. How ironical that the treasury benches, principal stakeholder in the address the governor, were also in overdrive to contribute to disorder in the House that was already witnessing unruly opposition protests” he wrote, and asked the speaker to meet him for a discussion for introspection and taking exemplary actions so that democratic values do not get so “demeaned, capsized and trampled”.