Senior Trinamool Congress leader and Bengal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay on Monday demanded abolition of Governor’s office saying it was not only redundant but also a burden on the exchequer.
The Bengal Minister said, “Our party has been bringing up this issue for quite some time that the office of the Governor has long lost its relevance and should be discontinued.”
Chattopadhyay who replaced jailed minister Partha Chatterjee said in the State Assembly that the post of Governor was an “unnecessary burden on the State exchequer and should be discontinued… not only because it is a burden on the exchequer but also because it has outlived its utility … it has been referred to in the Sarkaria Commission report … the Governor’s office is a hindrance in a federal democracy … at the most the functions of the Governor can be performed by the Chief Justice of the State.”
The Trinamool Congress Government had been at constant loggerheads with the Raj Bhavan when former Governor and vice president designate Jagdeep Dhankhar was in office accusing the then Governor of playing in the hands of the opposition BJP.
Reacting sharply to Chattopadhyay’s statement State BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said that it was the same Trinamool Congress that repeatedly fell back on the Governor during the Left rule.
“Today the Trinamool Congress is talking like Marxists … but once upon a time when they were in the opposition and they were fighting against the Left Government it was the same party that repeatedly rushed to the Governor’s House … like they did during the Singur and Nandigram movements,” Bhattacharya said.
CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakrabarty accused the TMC of double speak saying “when we used to raise the issue of how the post of the Governor was misused by the Centre Mamata Banerjee not only opposed us but contributed to that misuse … but today they are only following our path.”