Fresh war of words between Dhankhar, TMC

A new front opened on Thursday in the war of words between the ruling dispensation in West Bengal and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar with the latter terming Trinamool Congress MP Sougata Roy's claims of receiving communication from him against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as untrue.

This took place on a day when Dhankhar questioned the appointment of VCs in 24 state universities in the past and demanded an explanation from the higher education department on the matter. He also alleged that approval was not taken from Raj Bhavan by the Trinamool Congress government in past, which was ridiculed by the State Education Minister Bratya Basu in a tweet in which he did not name the governor.

Roy has claimed that the governor has been sending him text messages against Banerjee which is unethical.

Maintaining that the TMC MP's claim is ''far distanced from facts,'' Dhankhar tweeted ''The least expectation @SaugataRoyMP @LokSabhaSectt @AITC is to withdraw his statement.'' In a letter to Roy, a copy of which was attached to the tweet message, Dhankhar said he had communicated with the veteran MP for the first time on May 16, 2021, over his ''scathing criticism'' of the governor's role and actions and invited him for an interaction at the Raj Bhawan ''to act in togetherness in public interest''.

Referring to other communications between them over issues involving the state and its administration, Dhankhar said that these do not bear out Roy's allegations that he is lying or had been sending the TMC MP text messages against the TMC supremo.

Dhankhar and the ruling dispensation in the state have been on the collision path on several matters since he took over office on July, 2019.

''I can assure you that I would, undeterred by these politically ill-motivated salvos, continue to work towards vindicating my oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and be in service of the people of the State.

''Towards this I solicit dialogue, cooperation and coordination, all quintessence to democracy,'' the governor wrote in his letter to Roy. Basu, also a known theatre personality, has in a tweet shared eight stanzas of a humourous poem by Bengali poet Sukumar Roy, the father of film maestro Satyajit Roy, which narrates the antics of a person who often gets angry over one issue or another, suddenly jumps out of his chair in a fit of rage to rave and rant and threaten to carry on his fierce fight against one and all. He did not name Dhankhar in his tweet.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)