The face-off between Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and chief minister Mamata Banerjee still continues with statements and counter-statements made against each other regularly. Today, it got a new dimension when the constitutional head made yet another controversial assessment on the state administrative chief at Raj Bhavan.
While unveiling the portrait of the departed former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at Raj Bhavan to observe his birthday today Dhankhar said, “The very day the idea was conceived on 27 November 2019, I wrote a letter to the Hon’ble chief minister Mamata Banerjee earnestly proposed her to kindly unveil the portrait of Atalji for whom she has been publicly and rightly appreciative.
“I made this suggestion also for the reason that late Atalji had a great role in the political career of Mamataji and she as the chief minister was eminently suited for this. But Mamata Banerjee did not respond to my invitation.” It’s also known to all that Vajpayee had affection for Banerjee who used to hold important portfolios in ministries like railways and coal in his Union cabinet during 2001-2004.
She was also the minister without any portfolio during this period in the same cabinet. Once, Vajpayee had also visited Banerjee’s Kalighat residence in Kolkata. In different programmes and meeting the Trinamul Congress supremo Banerjee admitted Vajpayee’s affection for her saying, ‘he was much better than other BJP leaders like L K Advani and several others.’
She had also written in a daily commemorating Vajpayee as Prime Minister, political leader and a human being after the death of the latter in August, 2018. Paying respect to Vajpayee’s birthday today she also tweeted saying, “He was a leader of the state. He always used to think for the country cutting across politics. We are missing him badly.”
On Tuesday, Dhankhar in hard hitting statement aimed at the state government asked the chief minister to find a suitable time to call on him at Raj Bhavan within next 15 days to discuss among other thing, the treatment meted out to him at Jadavpur University.