Amid ongoing violence in various parts of the State ahead of the panchayat elections Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose on Sunday reminded the Mamata Banerjee Government of the power of the common man and the Raj Dharma (King’s duty) that it should perform.
Saying that whatever was going on in the villages was “not a happy thing,” the Governor reminded that Chief Ministers, Governors and all the political leadership were there to serve the people adding, the power the politicians enjoy come from the people and so they should not underestimate the power of the common man.
The Governor’s stern message came on a day when reports of political attacks and bombings came from various parts of the State. While CPI(M) candidates were attacked at Jamalpur and Kalna in Burdwan district, those of the BJP were beaten up at Karimpur in Nadia district. Again the ruling Trinamool Congress complained of an attack by armed saffron men at Bhetaguri in Coochbehar district. The car of a panchayat candidate was smashed by alleged BJP supporters, the TMC men complained.
This even as Congress and the TMC men fought with bombs and guns in various parts of Murshidabad, and Malda districts sources said.
The TMC immediately hit back with a hard-hitting statement even as its spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that Bose was behaving like an agent of the BJP at Raj Bhavan. “His acting like an agent of the BJP, the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who as the Chief Minister of Gujarat was once reminded of his own Raj Dharma by the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee,” Ghosh said adding it was the TMC that always followed its Raj Dharma unlike the BJP which was dealing the opposition governments in a vindictive manner.
“No one has to remind us of our Raj Dharma because in Bengal Mamata Banerjee Government has started a number of popular schemes like Kanyashree, Rupashree, Sabuj Saathi etc and the benefit of those schemes are not confined to the TMC men only … the BJP, CPI(M), Congress and all other parties get it in equal measures … but when you look at the BJP the central government has stopped all our funds after they were defeated in the 2021 Assembly elections,” Ghosh said. As for the Governor himself, “he should follow his own Raj Dharma by not acting according to the BJP’s agenda and by not converting the Raj Bhavan into a BJP party office,” Ghosh said.