TMC protests Bengal guv’s Cooch Behar visit

West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday faced a demonstration by a handful of Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers at Dinhata in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar district which he visited to meet victims of postpoll violence despite a strong advisory from chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

The two exchanged strongly worded letters on Wednesday evening. While Banerjee accused Dhankhar of violating protocols by planning to visit Cooch Behar without the state’s sanction, the

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latter accused Banerjee of showing no regard for the Constitution.

During the trip, Dhankhar was accompanied by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Cooch Behar MP Nisith Pramanik and the party’s district unit president Malati Rava Roy. They took the governor to some villages where people alleged that TMC workers attacked them and ransacked their homes after the poll results were announced on May 2.

Late on Thursday afternoon, about a dozen TMC workers shouted “go-back” slogans at Dhankhar in Dinhata town. They were driven away from the sidewalk by the local police.

“This is a serious security failure. This is total collapse of the rule of law. I never imagined this would happen,” the governor could be heard telling police officers deployed for his visit. He even got out of his car and stood in the middle of the road.

“The law and order situation in this region is far worse than what I had thought,” Dhankhar said at a press conference in Dinhata in the evening. “The chief minister instigated her workers against the central forces. She also threatened to teach people a lesson after the central forces left Bengal. All this puts democracy in danger,” said Dhankhar.

Reacting to the TMC demonstrations, Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh told a news channel that Cooch Behar resembles war-hit Syria. “Not even the governor can move freely in the region,” he said.

TMC leaders accused Dhankhar of being partisan.

“The governor is behaving like a BJP cadre. He has violated all sections in the Constitution that define a governor’s role,” said TMC Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy.

The BJP bagged 18 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 but could win only 77 assembly seats against the TMC’S 213.