Kolkata/New Delhi: The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal and the Centre were on warpath again on Friday after the Union Home Ministry summoned two top state officials to the national capital over the mob attack on BJP chief J P Nadda’s convoy and the state refused to comply.
In the latest flashpoint in the already strained ties between New Delhi and Kolkata, the Home Ministry summoned chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay and DGP Virendra likely for an explanation on the attack on December 14 but a defiant state government said they will not go.
Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, locked in a seemingly interminable feud with the Mamata Banerjee government, meanwhile, accused the state administration of pandering to those in power and said he has sent a report to the Centre about the “extremely disturbing developments”.
A fresh battle of attrition began Friday morning when an MHA communique demanded that the two top officials of the state appear before Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla on December 14 to explain as to how the breach in Nadda’s security happened.
Around the time the Centre’s summons landed on the desk of the state’s chief secretary, Dhankhar was addressing a press conference in Raj Bhawan where he said the developments that took place on Thursday did not augur well for democracy. “Finding the situation alarming, as my constitutional duty, I have sent a report to the central government about the extremely disturbing developments that do not augur well for democratic values, that are antithetical to rule of law, that sound death knell of constitutional parameters,” he told a press conference at Raj Bhawan. He said that he does not wish to share the contents of the report as part of propriety.
The TMC reacted sharply to the Governor’s remarks, calling him a “conduit pipe” of the BJP. “The Governor has made a habit of speaking to the press daily. We do not want to react to his statements, we can only say he is a conduit pipe of Bharatiya Janata Party,” TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee told reporters.
The TMC MP’s criticism of the governor was a harbinger of tougher things that the Mamata Banerjee government had planned to take the Modi government head on before the April- May assembly elections.
Minutes later, Chief Secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay wrote to Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, saying he has been directed to request to “dispense with the presence of the state officials” at the meeting convened on December 14, an obvious indication that he was just obeying the state government’s order.
