Dhankar, Mamata govt spar again

KOLKATA: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday wrote another letter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee and pointed to a “collapsing health sector” and “politicised public distribution system” in West Bengal and triggered a fresh war of words with the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). He alleged West Bengal was “emerging as a police state” where voices of opposition parties were being muzzled.

Dhankhar countered Banerjee’s allegation that he was trying to “usurp power” and said, “People in the state know only too well who in the state is usurper and extra-constitutional fountain of power. Who runs government and syndicates? Who is this ABCD! An open secret! Surely, I am not the person.”

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, have accused the TMC of running

“syndicates”, which loosely refers to groups forcing people to buy products from them. Banerjee earlier replied to Dhankhar in response to the latter’s series of letters and social media posts. Dhankar wrote two letters to Banerjee on April 23 and 24.

TMC lawmaker Sudip Banerjee dismissed Dhankar’s charges as “nonsense”. “We would take a call whether to respond to his statements and letters at all. He speaks gibberish. He is merely playing his role in the Centre’s plan to discredit Bengal,” he said.