There is no rule of law in Bengal which had been reduced to a police State, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has told Union Home Minister Amit Shah with whom he met in Delhi on Thursday.
Alleging that the Mamata Banerjee Government had reduced Bengal into a “Banana Republic,” the Governor said that he was anguished about how the next year’s Assembly elections would be conducted the State.
Emerging from a meeting with Shah the Governor said “you don’t have any idea of what is happening in West Bengal. The law and order situation has completely
crumbled down. Police and bureaucrats are working as political servants of the ruling party. The crime statistics has gone up and Al-Qaeda is spreading its fangs in Murshidabad.”
Alleging that, the State had been reduced to a “police state” and a “banana republic” he said that all his requests for information on the state affairs are ignored by the Government.
“It is my duty to save the Constitution. … I believe in reformation and that can happen only through dialogues. But they hardly respond to my letters. Under such circumstances, how can a constitutional head like me have a sound sleep?”
He however remained evasive about whether Bengal had become a fit case for President’s Rule though he said that there was a “virtual anarchy” in Bengal and the political violence had become a matter of concern.
“Political leaders are getting killed. The power of corridors in the state is infested by non-state actors. This is surely not democracy,” he said even as the ruling Trinamool Congress leadership launched a scathing counterattack on the Governor saying “he is a liability for Bengal.”
Bengal Minister Partho Chatterjee said “so much has been said by him and so much has been said about him in the past one year that nothing more is left…. And all such discourses have only proved that he isacting as the BJP’s spokesperson who has converted the Governor’s House into a party office. Less said about him the better.”
Another senior leader said that there was nothing new in what the Governor had said on Thursday.
Rather what is new is the timing of his visit to Delhi and meeting with the Home Minister which took place hours before his shifting of office to Darjeeling for a month.
“Had he gone to meet the Home Minister just before his Darjeeling trip people would have said that he has gone to take the briefing on his political activities in
Darjeeling… Now he can at least say that he had gone to brief the Home Minister about the State of affairs in Bengal and in the disguise he is carrying back instructions on what he has to do in Darjeeling,” where he will stay for a month from November 1.
Meanwhile all hell broke loose at Bagnan in Howrah where the BJP supporters clashed with the police during a saffron party sponsored bandh to protest against the inordinate delay by the administration to conduct second post porterm on a slayn party worker who was allegedly murdered by the TMC men about a fortnight ago.
The police resorted to lathi charge after the angry saffron workers threw burning tyres in front of the local police station. Severalpersons were arrested, sources said.