Amid ongoing war of words between Raj Bhavan and Nabanna (State secretariat), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday met Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar for about two hours — longest ever encounter between the two ever since he took charge in 2019— at the Governor’s house.
While the two sides reportedly discussed a host of recent political issues including National Human Rights Commission’s inquiry into the reported post-poll violence and the alleged denial of the Public Accounts Committee Chairmanship to Opposition BJP what figured most in the one-on-one parley was the Trinamool Congress Government’s proposal to re-introduce the Legislative Council in the State, Nabanna sources said.
The ruling party had earlier passed a resolution in the State Assembly in support of creating an upper house. The Legislative Assembly was done away with in Bengal in the year 1969 during the rule of Joint Front Government of Left and Bangla Congress. Subsequent Governments of SS Ray, Jyoti Basu and even Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee would not resurrect the bi-cameral system.
The Chief Minister had however made a move to reintroduce the system after she came for the second time in 2016 and made it an electoral promise ahead of the 2021 Assembly polls leading the opposition parties to cirticise the move saying it would cost the State exchequer an additional `800 crore.
Bengal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari said that “they have got the resolution passed in Bengal House but they will have to get it passed in Parliament … which will be a difficult task.”
The Wednesday’s meeting between the Governor and the Chief Minister took place amid incessant firing of salvos from both the sides with the Governor continuously attacking the State Government for doing nothing about repeated post-poll attacks on the Opposition workers and their supporters and the Chief Minister calling him a “corrupt man” wondering whether his name appeared in the Jain Hawala case.