The war of words between West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and the ruling Trinamool Congress continued unabated with Mr. Dhankhar on Monday writing another strongly worded letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
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Mr. Dhankhar accused Ms. Banerjee “of running a police state’. The Trinamool leadership responded saying the remarks put “parliamentary democracy under threat”.
“West Bengal is, unfortunately, emerging as a police state with anyone posting on social media, to the distaste of the ruling dispensation, gets a police knock at his door,” the Governor said in the letter.
“Your misplaced stand, that as an elected Chief Minister with majority in legislature you are impregnably unaccountable, and as a Governor I have no role is lamentable. This smacks of authoritarianism which has no place in democracy, where all are accountable,” Mr. Dhankhar wrote.
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The TMC leadership also minced no words in hitting back.
“I have been elected nine times from the State, five times to Parliament. The remarks of the Governor are putting the parliamentary democracy under threat,” Leader of the TMC in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandyopadhyay said. Party’s leader in the Rajya Sabha and TMC national spokesperson Derek O’Brien described the remarks a ‘distraction’ and reminded journalists that the “Governor is also a former BJP MP”.
