The ongoing tension between the Mamata Banerjee Government and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had extraordinary fallouts with State Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee on Wednesday taking an unprecedented decision to adjourn the House for two days following a delay by the Raj Bhavan in signing three bills.
Though there was no official statement from the Government or the Governor’s House on the bizarre development inside sources said, the inordinate delay by the Governor in signing the bills was an upshot of growing differences between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Governor who has repeatedly complained against the State Ministers and even the Chief Minister for being incourteous to him.
The Speaker announced that the House will remain adjourned till December 5. He said “the House will be adjourned for two days. The bills which were scheduled to be placed won’t be tabled as they are yet to receive the nod of the Governor …We had sent those bills for printing but can’t place them in the Assembly as they are yet to get the nod.”
While Opposition Left and Congress jointly questioned the logic behind the adjournment as “there are a host of other issues to be discussed — from rising cases of dengue to rising prices of eatables,” State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the Governor was not a puppet in the hands of the Government and he was not bound to sign all the bills making it clear that there was “some politics behind his not signing the bills as is the norm.”
While there was no statement from the Governor’s House Ghosh said “Governor is not bound to sign every bill sent by the Government just because it is in majority.” He accused the Government of “getting passed all the bills without it being scrutinised.”
He said “I was in the Assembly for three years and I saw how sometimes bills were sent to the Governor at the last hour so that he had no time to go through it… Maybe this time he is taking time to go through the bill… this government runs the house in a peculiar manner. The bill that is discussed sometimes is not the one that gets signed. So if the Governor is taking time to read it between the lines he is not doing any wrong.”
The State has sent three bills including SC/ST Commission bill, sources said.
Dhankhar is at loggerheads with the TMC Government on a number of issues. The cold war peaked on the Constitution Day celebrations last week. The Chief Minister and the Governor who were present at the State Assembly would not exchange pleasantries. Subsequently Dhankhar accused Banerjee for “humiliating” him “on every occasion” and not briefing himregularly.