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Bengal

TMC writes to President seeking recall of Governor

TMC writes to President seeking recall of Governor
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Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday said they had submitted a memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind requesting him to remove state Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar for his failure to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and added that he was "transgressing constitutional limits".

The signatories to the memorandum are Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Sukhendu Shekhar Roy, Kalyan Banerjee, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Derek O' Brien. It was sent to the President on Tuesday night.

They alleged: "He (Governor) had repeatedly breached law declared by the Supreme Court. From the seat of highest Constitutional office in the state and he has been inducing divisive politics, just because ruling parties at the Centre and state are political opponents."

"The Governor holds office during the pleasure of the President as per Article 156, Clause 1. We have urged the President to withdraw the pleasure, which translates into removing this governor," Roy said.

Addressing a press conference at Trinamool Bhavan, Roy alleged that the Governor was deliberately spreading canard to tarnish the image of the state government and Trinamool Congress to keep his bosses at the Centre in good humour. "Not only has he lowered the post of the Governor but flouted the Indian Constitution and law of the Supreme Court," he said, adding "Bengal had great Governors like Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Harendranath Mukherjee, BD Pandey, Professor Nurul Hassan, Gopal Krishna Gandhi among others. Nowhere in the country one finds a Governor holding press conferences and is vocal through tweets to tarnish the image of the state government and the Chief Minister," he said.

He said some of the statements, words, tweets, media briefings directed against the state government clearly show his flagrant disregard for the Indian Constitution. Some of these words or statements are "culpable", " anarchy", "lawlessness", "political police", "collapse of law and order", "time for all to wake up and restore rule of law" etc and are uncalled for.

Roy quoted from the judgment given by a seven-judge Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court in Shamsher Singh versus State of Punjab, in July 1973, in which the Bench remarked: "For a Centrally appointed Constitutional functionary to keep a dossier on his ministers or to report against them or to take up public stances critical of Government policy settled by the Cabinet or to interfere in the administration directly — these are constitutionally faux pas and run counter to parliamentary system." Roy cited Dhankhar's statement seeking expense details of the Bengal Business Summit, his demand for an apology from the Chief Minister over some of her recent comments and his "threat to 25 IPS officers" as instances of the Governor "violating his rights and limitations".

"He has also said it is his duty to ensure free and fair polls. Who is he? It is the domain of the Election Commission. Similarly, only the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) has the authority to seek details of the expenses of state-organised events like the Bengal Business Summit," Roy maintained.

An angry Dhankhar shot back claiming free and fair elections are not held in the state and that it is his duty to ensure people exercise their franchise without any fear.

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