Dhankhar asks officials, cops to be apolitical

The governor was addressing a press conference in Siliguri in north Bengal.

Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday said political violence was “stigmatising” the state and asked police and bureaucrats to work as “public servants, not political servants”.

“We cannot have bureaucracy which is politically oriented and work for a political party — both ruling and Opposition. This is not the actual role of the public servants. They should work as public servants not as political servants. This is a very serious issue here to ignore. The long arm of law will catch them surely,” he said while addressing a press conference in Siliguri in north Bengal.

On poll violence, Dhankhar said, “When I said, we will have free and fair polls, friends I mean it. This time it is not going to happen in this cultural epicentre of the world. Why this state should be stigmatised with such violence.”

His statement came days after Manish Shukla, a BJP leader in North 24 Parganas district, was shot dead. The saffron party claimed that the TMC was behind it. The ruling party has rejected the allegation.

Dhankhar on Friday stood by the crime data he had shared on Twitter. “There were 223 rapes and there were 639 kidnappings in August, 2020. I put the ‘authentic’ statistic on Twitter based on the reports sent by the DCs with their signatures. And within minutes, what does the state Home Department said: ‘Its baseless, incorrect, ill-founded, and misguiding’. Where are they living? When will they learn?” Dhankhar asked.

Referring to the NIA arrest of seven suspected al-Qaeda operatives from West Bengal, the Governor said, “the law and order situation in West Bengal is very alarming. We have the presence of terror outfits like al-Qaeda in the state. It’s a threat to the national security.”

Meanwhile, he visited the family of Havildar Bipul Roy, who was among 20 soldiers killed at Galwan valley in Ladakh in June, in Alipurduar on Friday. He tweeted that he handed over a cheque of Rs 5.5 lakh to the widow of Roy, while his wife, Sudesh Dhankhar, presented another cheque of Rs 5.5 lakh to the late solder’s mother.

Posters decrying the governor for acting on behalf of a particular political party appeared at various places on the roads taken by him.

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