The ongoing war of words degenerated into a grimy war of letters with Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar casting a 13-page memo at Mamata Banerjee accusing the Chief Minister of “minority appeasement” “cover up her monumental failures in tackling” the corona pandemic in the State.
With daggers drawn from both sides over their mutual claim of mastery as corona warriors Banerjee had on Thursday shot off a stringent letter to Dhankhar questioning the “tone, tenor of your languages and messages to me” and wondering how a ‘nominated functionary’ could humiliate an elected office.
On Friday the Governor — who had for the past a few days been rebuking the Government for below par performance and not keeping him informed about the pandemic situation — slapped a blunt reply accusing the Chief Minister for her alleged minority politics.
He wrote, “your appeasement of the minority community was so explicit and awkward on the Nizamuddin Markaz incident. This is most unfortunate and cannot be appreciated,” in an apparent reference to how the Chief Minister had during a press conference reprimanded a journalist for asking communal questions when he asked her to comment on the whereabouts of the Tablighi Jamaat attendees who might have come to Bengal from Delhi’s Nizamuddin area.
Though the Left and Congress had earlier blamed the Chief Minister for minority communalism that created by default, a ground for the BJP’s Hindutva politics in Bengal, “no Chief Minister let alone Mamata Banerjee had ever received a similar official admonition from a constitutional office,” critics said.
Referring to the Chief Minister’s letter he further wrote, “your constant refrain of Governor being 'nominated' is lamentable and can be ascribed only to elementary ignorance of the Constitution.”
As the Governor he could not be expected to be in “sleep mode” when the State was in a “stressful condition” or work as a post office or a rubber stamp he iterated alerting the Chief Minister about another letter from him with vivid details to follow in future saying, “this response be taken as initial one and a thorough one will be imparted to you tomorrow with complete documentation so that people of the state, as you say, are made aware and come to know the series of acts of indignities and indiscretions heaped by you, your ministers on the Governor all through.”
Urging the Chief Minister to “disable your political antenna” and shun confrontational politics which would only increase miseries of the people of the State the Governor said “your communication is part of the alibi strategy that emanates from a script that seeks to cover up monumental failures in these challenging times by a series of blunders.”
Among the blunders the Governor underscored the alleged suppression of facts regarding the number of corona infections and deaths in the State apart from large-scale mismanagement in public distribution system that led to a police-public clash at Baduria in North 24 Parganas leaving several men in uniform injured. The Baduria incident was just a “tip of the iceberg,” he said.