Worrisome trend

Since three years, the continuing war of words between West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar and the state chief minister Mamata Banerjee has gone on for too long and beyond any level of tolerance. In fact even three months after he assumed office as Governor of West Bengal on July 30, 2019, Jagdeep Dhankhar begun his mission to prevent the state chief minister Mamata Banerjee using his official Twitter handle to post his critique of the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government on various issues. It appears that West Bengal has a very unusual and bizarre situation where the Governor and the chief minister are not on the same page but at loggerheads over almost every issue. It has come to such a stage that the saying ‘Mamata proposes but Dhankar disposes’ has become part of daily routine. Even before, during and after the recent assembly election held in the state, the Governor himself spoke on every issue like the leader of the opposition in the state and worse, the Raj Bhavan became like the BJP headquarters. Even if Mamata Banerjee is not an epitome of a respecter of constitutional rule of law, it is expected that the custodian of the constitution would not apportion or hijack the constitution by acting in an arbitrary manner. Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar said that “West Bengal is a state with highest fear quotient.” Governor Dhankar could have written to the government on specific instances and also forwarded his letter to the union home minister. Earlier, on January 31, Mamata Banerjee blocked Dhankhar from her Twitter account to stop him from tagging her to his tweets which she described as “irritating.” Banerjee also accused the governor of tapping phones from Raj Bhawan. TMC leaders frequently describe Dhankhar as “an agent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).” The acrimonious relationship between the TMC government with the governor has touched an all-time low in recent months. As there was no hope of the Governor toning down his public attack on the TMC and arbitrarily rejecting any proposals, the TMC decided to place a Substantive Motion in the Rajya Sabha in the recent parliament session, criticising the actions of governor of not agreeing to summoning the house for the March session. The TMC declared it will move a motion in parliament, condemning Dhankhar’s actions, at the budget session of the state assembly in March. However and expectedly the Rajya Sabha chairman did not allow any discussion on the subject. On February 18, he Calcutta High Court, Division Bench rejected the PIL by Ram Prasad Sarkar seeking direction from the central government in a bid to remove Jagdeep Dhankhar as the governor of West Bengal. The division bench, comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice R Bharadwaj, while rejecting the appeal, observed said the Governor is not answerable to any court for the exercise and performance of the powers and duties of his office under Article 361 of Constitution. All these confirm that Dhankar has the Centre’s backing to create hurdles against a ruling party opposed to the BJP as evident in all states where governors are hostile to government ruled by opposition parties. This is a very unhealthy situation fraught with dangerous constitutional ramification in a country loosely held together through consensus.