West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday hinted that he could make changes to his speech that has been approved by the State Cabinet for his address to the Assembly before the start of the Budget session on February 7.
“A draft of the address has been made available to me after approval of the State Cabinet. That is under my consideration. If I leave one issue, or would like to make an addition, I will do it in a formal manner,” Mr. Dhankhar told journalists on the sidelines of an event at the Raj Bhavan.
Any departure from the speech approved by the Cabinet could trigger a fresh row, but Mr. Dhankhar said “the Governor and the State government should be accommodative of each other’s view”.
“Even if there are different points of view that cannot take us to a level of confrontation. That is (we have) to be accommodative of each other’s point of view, keeping only one thing in mind — rule of law, the Indian constitution and the welfare of the State, its people, and its development,” Mr. Dhankhar said.
A number of officials and Ministers have visited the Raj Bhavan over the past few days and held discussions with the Governor. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee called on the Governor twice and Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha also met Mr. Dhankhar once.
Another interesting development that has become a subject of discussion is the State government’s allotment of a chopper to the Governor to visit Visva-Bharati University in Birbhum district. The government had turned down similar requests on two earlier occasions.