Voicing concern over the alleged deterioration of law and order in West Bengal, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday said the state police were not functioning by the rules, and urged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to find time and interact with him on the matter. Taking to Twitter, the governor said opposition MPs and MLAs were being targeted by the police, which “acts as workers of the ruling party”.
“As the governor of the state, I am extremely worried to see this alarming decline in the law and order situation in the state,” he said in a video message. Dhankhar, who has been on a collision course with the Trinamool Congress government on several issues since he took charge as the governor of West Bengal a year ago, said, “Public representatives and opposition party leaders are virtually being hunted out of public space by the state police.
This is undemocratic.” Dhankhar also claimed that members of parliament and assembly were being ill-treated by the police. “I have requested the honourable Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to spare time and interact with me… We cannot afford to have police that does not act by law but acts in a partisan manner like a political worker of the ruling party,” he added.
Several opposition leaders, including those of the BJP, have in the recent past claimed that they were stopped from distributing relief material to people hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and Cyclone Amphan. Earlier this month, a BJP MLA was found hanging from the ceiling of a veranda outside a shuttered shop near his home at Hemtabad in North Dinajpur district, following which the saffron party claimed that he was murdered.