The West Bengal governor and the ruling party TMC have been at loggerheads for most of the three years he has been in the post, fighting over several issues, including fake Covid vaccination camps, a 1996 hawala scam, and violence after the Trinamool’s sweeping victory in the recently held elections.
On Friday afternoon, a commotion erupted in the West Bengal Assembly as governor Jagdeep Dhankhar began his speech— opening address of the new Bengal Assembly session. Opposition BJP MLAs held up placards and shouted protests ostensibly over post-poll violence, and the Governor left without completing his speech.
The governor was scheduled to address the session at the beginning of the session. In the speech he praised the work of the government. However, as soon as he started his speech, the slogan in the assembly was ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jay’, and he was forced to stop less than 10 minutes into his address and was escorted to his vehicle by Speaker Biman Banerjee.
Usually the assembly session starts with the speech of the governor. Although there is a lot of controversy over the Governor’s speech or his statements regarding the speech, it is unprecedented to end the speech in the middle or at the beginning.
The speech praised the state’s role in curbing “post-election violence”. It is to be noted that the BJP has repeatedly complained about the violence. It was mentioned in the speech that all the incidents of violence took place during the polls when law and order was in the hands of the Election Commission. The brief speech also mentioned that the Trinamool-led government had impartially investigated the incidents after coming to power. Nevertheless, the BJP complained about this statement.
Opposition leader Shuvendu Adhikari after the incident, said that the governor was active in speaking against violence. “The governor is a sensitive person,” Shuvendu told reporters later.
“He went to Shitalkuchi, Nandigram to take note of the post-poll violence situation. 41 BJP workers have been killed in the state. Women have been oppressed. We have raised all that in the assembly. If there was even a line in the speech about post-poll violence, we would have acted as a responsible opponent,” he said, referring to the protests in the assembly.
Nevertheless, BJP vehemently protested against the fact that the governor’s speech did not mention post-election violence and how it was ‘orchestrated’ by the party in power.
