Much to the satisfaction in the Opposition BJP ranks, the brief bonhomie between the Mamata Banerjee Government and Raj Bhavan under the new Governor CV Ananda Bose tended to show cracks with the latter abruptly removing his Principal Secretary Nandini Chakravorty while the State Government instead of sending in a replacement, asking the senior bureaucrat to continue in her office.
That everything was not hunky-dory between the State secretariat Nabanna and Raj Bhavan was further buttressed by a remark made by Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh on Tuesday.
He said that the TMC Government firmly believed in the policy of returning what it got. “The TMC believes in returning the kind of civility it receives,” Ghosh said adding the Governor had been quite courteous all these weeks but he did not believe that the BJP would let that relationship to continue. Ghosh said, “The Governor and the Government were going well … the chemistry was quite courteous … so as to let the government function smoothly … but we knew that the BJP will not cherish this and pressure would mount on the Governor to tow the line of Jagdeep Dhankhar,” who was the Governor of Bengal before being elevated as the Vice President of India.
Ghosh also reminded that the “people who had sent Mr Dhankhar have appointed Mr Bose … so we did not expect that those who made the appointment would expect anything different from the honourable Governor what they got Mr Dhankhar to do when he was gracing the Raj Bhavan by letting it degenerate into a playground of the BJP leaders…. During his tenure the Raj Bhavan functioned as the BJP party office.”
On the removal of Chakravorty as the Governor’s principal secretary Ghosh said “it is quite amusing to see how she was relieved of her charges because till barely a day before everything was going well, her performance was quite liked by the Governor and suddenly she was removed a day after Bengal BJP president Sukanto Majumdar met him for one hour.”
The TMC spokesperson said “we hear that the Governor is willing to prepare his own team of IAS officers from here or outside but one wonders whether the Governor can take such decisions without consulting the Government or without the Government’s acquiescence.” The TMC believed in “returning the courtesy,” he maintained adding “so long as we get good treatment we will return that … we believe in returning good and courteous behavior… let us see what unfolds in the future.