The political mercury in the state appears to be on the rise as the governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has announced he would be meeting a delegation of eight Trinamul Congress members on Tuesday, acting on an appointment request from the state education minister Bratya Basu.

But, he highlighted that no particular issue was flagged for the meeting in the appointment request letter.

Advertisement

The state government and the governor are at loggerheads over a wide range of matters but the latest addition is some Bills, passed in the state Assembly, which seek to replace the governor with the state government in certain state affairs. West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill 2022 replaces him with the chief minister as chancellor of state government universities. The West Bengal Taxation Tribunal (Amendment) Bill seeks to replace him with the state government as the appointing authority in making appointments of the chairman of the tribunal.

Mr Dhankhar, during his recent address from Raj Bhavan after meeting a delegation of BJP MLAs, led by Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, made it clear that he will not sign the Bills if these are found to be in transgression of the law and violating any Supreme Court rulings while also clarifying that neither will he consider these with prejudice. He had said that the removal of the governor as chancellor will only harm the education sector as recent events revealed the extent of corruption relating to teacher appointments.

The governor took to his Twitter handle to announce that he is scheduled for a meeting with a delegation of ruling party members on 28 June at 11.30 am at Raj Bhavan. He clarified: “No particular issue has been flagged in the request”. The appointment request, addressed to the governor by the state education minister Bratya Basu, mentioned that the delegation will discuss some pertinent issues that have cropped up in the “recent past in our state”.

Meanwhile, the TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, on Friday, accused the governor of entertaining the Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari in return for some profits. His statement came after Sudipto Sen, the promoter of the chit-fund entity Saradha Group, alleged in court that he was extorted a number of times by Mr Adhikari who was then a TMC MLA.

Ghosh alleged that the governor is giving political asylum to Suvendu, whose name allegedly appears in a CBI FIR in the Narada bribery case and in the list of the Saradha chit-fund case. He demanded to know what the governor was receiving in return for extending such privileges to Adhikari.