Bitter relationships between state governments and Governors are not a new thing but the ongoing spat between Mamata Banerjee and Jagdeep Dhankhar has taken the state polity to a new low. The Chief Minister of West Bengal blocked the state's governor on a public platform and continues with her veiled attacks thereafter. Mamata Banerjee's actions have come as a response to the governor's excessive tirade against her on Twitter. This couldn't just be discounted as a personal rivalry between two personalities. The fact that both of them hold the topmost civilian positions in the state calls for greater responsibility on their part. These developments will likely set negative precedents for the coming days and undermine the interest of the people of Bengal as the governance becomes bumpier. The seriousness of the matter is also reflected from the fact that the rivalry continues to grow stronger ever since Mamata Banerjee formed the government last year following a sweeping victory against the BJP in the state. The governor flagged the issue of public order and even highlighted the urge for President's rule in the state — a tactic generally used against state governments ruled by parties in Opposition against the Central government. The Governor's unrelenting tirade against Mamata Banerjee's government undermines two of the loftiest institutions in India — the democracy and the Constitution. Firstly, the fact that Mamata Banerjee rode to power on overwhelming support of the people should imply that the public trust in her governance commands a certain degree of respect. Secondly, it is known that our Constitution makers deliberately accorded significant powers to the Governor because India's federalism was intended to be tilted more towards the Union for the security aspects of the nation. Unlike the United States where the states came together to form a federal structure, in India, essentially the Union was divided into the state. While wielding greater power to the governor, the Constitution also embodied a spirit of trust that would hold the Governor's office responsible for exercising moral restraint. It is unfortunate that governors in India have been persistently defying this trust over decades, not years. The public perception of governors being the agent of the Centre is increasingly being normalized in the nation. The occasional pulling down, or obstructing the formation of, state governments has now been turned into daily-basis commenting. It has to be understood that the Governor and Chief Minister are two prominent wheels of the governance and sync between them is related to the prosperity and well-being of the people of the state. While West Bengal is in the limelight, other non-BJP ruled states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are also facing a decline in this respect. Such trends, if allowed to continue, will only get aggravated beyond limits in the future. It marks a dangerous political norm-setting, which is most likely to last longer — setting state polity on a regressive path. In fact, we already have touched the bottom of regression that started somewhere way back in the 1980s. It was towards the end of this decade that dismissal of SR Bommai government and imposition of President's rule invoked a legal question around the misuse of power by governors at the behest of Centre. The whole episode culminated into the 1994 SR Bommai judgement which articulated well-defined limits to the governor's authority in order to prevent the misuse of Article 356 of the Indian Constitution to unseat state governments ruled by parties in opposition to the Centre. It requires no proof that rampant toppling of state governments has continued unabated. It is in fact now being practiced more frequently and blatantly. It was this intensity of scale that forced the Supreme Court to observe in 2016 in Nabam Rebia and Bamang Felix vs Deputy Speaker case that "a nominee cannot have overriding powers over the representatives of the people". Quite unfortunately, things don't appear to change even after the Supreme Court's clear-cut stance. The simmering tensions between Mamata Banerjee and Jagdeep Dhankhar represent a tipping point. Perhaps the time has come that a structural change be made regarding the relations of governors with the state governments. Mamata Banerjee's actions may appear absurd to many at the present moment but that should be seen to be challenging a small and deliberate lapse in the Constitution that is being leveraged for political benefits while damaging the Constitutional spirit.