New Bengal guv takes oath, political row over seating
Former bureaucrat C V Ananda Bose on Wednesday took oath as governor of West Bengal, and immediately got a taste of Bengal politics as a political row erupted over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) objecting to the seating arrangement at Raj Bhavan, and the Congress skipping the ceremony citing a violation of “principles of democracy”.
Bose was administered the oath of office by chief justice of Calcutta high court Prakash Shrivastava in the presence of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and speaker Biman Banerjee.
A retired Kerala cadre IAS officer of the 1977 batch, Bose was named the new governor on November 17, replacing Manipur governor La Ganesan, who was holding the additional charge of Bengal since July after the incumbent Jagdeep Dhankar got elected as Vice-president of India.
Leader of Opposition in the assembly, BJP’S Suvendu Adhikari, skipped the ceremony, alleging that the TMC government
“insulted” him by allotting him a seat beside two MLAS who defected to the ruling party without resigning from the BJP after last year’s elections.
Adhikari and state BJP chief Sukanta Majumar were allotted seats behind the ones earmarked for TMC Rajya Sabha members. “Protocols were violated on purpose to insult us. Majumdar is a Lok Sabha member and the Leader of Opposition enjoys the same rank as that of a cabinet minister. How can they sit beside Krishna Kumar Kalyani and Biswajit Das who are facing defection charges for joining the TMC?” Adhikari said.
After meeting the governor, he said: “We hope he’ll be a custodian of democracy like Jagdeep Dhankhar (now Vice-president).”
State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury skipped the ceremony and wrote a letter to Bose, seeking his intervention over alleged misuse of power by the state administration. He alleged the TMC was threatening Congress councillors at Jhalda municipality in Purulia district after they won a no-confidence motion and retained control over the civic body last week. “The TMC government is now planning to employ an administrator for the civic body to keep the Congress out of power. I have requested the new governor to uphold the principles of democracy,” he said.
TMC’S Kunal Ghosh countered Adhikari’s claims, but did not comment on Chowdhury’s allegation. “Adhikari left TMC and joined the BJP to save himself in the Saradha and Narada cases. He skipped the event because he doesn’t have the courage to face top TMC leaders,” he said.