West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose launched a two-pronged attack on Mamata Banerjee and the State Government over the weekend. Raj Bhavan sources said that the Governor had filed a defamation suit against the Chief Minister. Simultaneously, the Governor has also demanded a White Paper on the State finances from the Government, saying that Bengal was facing a financial breakdown. He also demanded that the Chief Minister convene an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the State’s financial situation.
The developments come in the wake of the Governor meeting Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal in New Delhi on Saturday.
The defamation suit comes days after Mamata Banerjee said women were not feeling safe visiting Raj Bhavan. She had made the remarks on the issue relating to swearing in of two newly elected Trinamool Congress MLAs who refused to go to Raj Bhavan for being administered oath.
“Why must everyone go to Raj Bhavan? The Governor can authorise the Speaker or Deputy Speaker, or attend the Assembly himself. Women have informed me they are not feeling safe to visit Raj Bhavan due to recent incidents reported there,” the Chief Minister had said. What the Chief Minister was alluding to while referring to women feeling scared while visiting Raj Bhavan was in context of allegations of harassment brought by a woman employee on Raj Bhavan against the Governor on May 2.
The Governor had responded to the remarks of the Chief Minister by saying that it was expected of public representatives not to create “erroneous and slanderous impressions”.
Two MLAs, Sayantika Bandyopadhyay and Rayat Hossain Sarkar, elected from Baranagar and Bhagwangola Assembly seats in the recently concluded bye-polls have been demanding that the Governor should administer oath to them at the State Assembly. The Raj Bhavan had provided an opportunity for the MLAs to be administered oath but the MLAs did not turn up.
The Ministers of State Government, including the Chief Minister, have refrained from visiting Raj Bhavan since May 2, when the allegations by the Raj Bhavan employee against the Governor became public.
After the meeting with Union Finance Minister N. Sitharaman on Saturday evening, Raj Bhavan posted a statement on X saying that the Governor was expected to play the role of a watchdog on the finances and other aspects of the State administration as mandated in Article 167 of the Constitution.
“The fiscal situation of West Bengal is confronting multiple fiscal risks and public finance management issues exposing serious lapses on the part of the State Government. It is very disturbing, shocking, and shattering to see that West Bengal is facing a financial breakdown. Its public finance is in the doldrums,” the Governor claimed in a statement issued by Raj Bhavan.
“Considering the grave nature of the economic scenario, the Governor calls upon the CM upon the authority vested in him under Article 167 of the Constitution read with Rule 30 of the Rules of Business for West Bengal framed under Article 166 of the Constitution, to place a comprehensive report on the State’s financial situation before the Council of Ministers and issue a White Paper for the information of the people of the State,” the statement said.
The 11-page statement by the Governor detailed the sorry financial state of West Bengal and quoted figures from a Reserve Bank of India study. The Governor pointed out that the RBI Study on State Finance had noted that “West Bengal is one of the States that is most reliant on the Central transfer, with a fifth of its revenue coming in the form of grants.”
Despite significant resource transfers from the Union to the State of West Bengal, the existence of a very high fiscal imbalance requires urgent attention, the Governor said in the statement.
He added that there was a critical need to improve revenue, rationalize expenditure and reduce debt to GSDP ratio. “Fiscal stress emanating from high debt is reducing the State’s capacity to spend on development of social and economic services,” the Governor said.
He also pointed out that intra-regional inequality in West Bengal was very high and required to be addressed through effective decentralization of fiscal resources within the State.
Trinamool Congress sources said the reason behind Bose’s “new-found interest in finances” could be BJP’s unease with the welfare plans like Lakshmir Bhandar for women run by the Mamata Banerjee-led Government that had brought rich dividends for the party in the recently held General Elections.