KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday called up Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to inform him that the cabinet note sent to Raj Bhavan to summon the budget session on March 7 had a typographical error, in which 2 pm was wrongly mentioned once as 2 am.
The CM reportedly told the governor, “It was a typing mistake. It would have been better if this was understood.” Banerjee will convene a fresh cabinet meeting on Monday to send a revised proposal to the governor correcting the typo.
In the morning, Dhankhar had tweeted that based on a cabinet decision, he was summoning the budget session on March 7 at 2 am, dubbing it as “unusual and history of sorts in the making, but that is a cabinet decision”.
The governor summoning the legislative assembly post-midnight has no precedent in legislative history except for PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s “tryst with destiny” speech in Parliament at midnight, the day India won Independence on August 15, 1947.
Dhankhar, in support of his claim, uploaded on his Twitter handle “paragraph 8” of the memo passed by the state cabinet on February 21. It states that the cabinet urged the governor to invoke his powers to call the Bengal assembly session on February 7 at 2 am. The note — also posted by Dhankhar on Twitter — mentions the date and time four times. It was mentioned 2 pm three times, but at the end — in paragraph 8 — it was mentioned as 2 am.
At 10.21 am, Dhankhar tweeted that he found the “timing of session after midnight somewhat odd” and asked the chief secretary to meet him before noon. Later, the governor said since this wasn’t done, he went by the cabinet proposal.
Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said: “After seeing the governor’s 2 am tweet, the CM called him up to inform that it was a typographical error. Everywhere else (in the cabinet note) it has been written as 2 pm. It would have been better if this was understood. To send a revised cabinet proposal by rectifying the am as pm, a cabinet meeting has been convened by the CM on Monday.”
Ghosh added: “But the question remains why the governor made public a cabinet note sent to him. This is neither a norm nor a policy. He is breaking all norms. He is always preoccupied in defaming Bengal. By acting as a BJP representative, he is demeaning the role of a governor.”
The governor had earlier sent back the proposal to the government on the ground that it was made by the CM without getting her proposal passed in a cabinet meeting. Accordingly, Banerjee held a cabinet meeting on February 21 to pass it.
