Freedom to express views is a golden gift of the Constitution and intolerance for it in any form can destroy the democratic fabric of the country, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar said on Sunday.
Dhankar's comments came close on the heels of West Bengal Congress spokesman Sanmoy Bandopadhyay's arrest over alleged criticism of the TMC government and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on social media.
"Expressions of your view point is a golden gift of the Constitution and its intolerance in any form is destructive of democracy. Let's learn decent ways to disagree one another. Intolerance by structured mechanism is painfully worrying (sic)," he said in a tweet without naming anyone.
The governor has been on a collision course with the Trinamool Congress government in the state since he 'rescued' Union minister Babul Supriyo who was mobbed by angry students at the Jadavpur University here on September 19. Reacting to this, the Trinamool Congress said there was no need to give reply to each and every utterance of Dhankhar, while the opposition BJP and the Congress blamed the ruling party to have failed to give due respect to the post of the governor.
TMC secretary general and state minister Partha Chatterjee said, "There is no need to respond to every single utterance of the governor. We don't have the will to hog newspaper headlines every day."