A file photo of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
The war of letters between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and state's governor Jagdeep Dhankar continues in the first week of May as the Trinamool Congress chief accused the constitutional head of the state of employing language that is 'unprecedented in the annals of India's constitutional and political history.'
"I would challenge anyone, repeat anyone, to produce such correspondence and such oral statements from any Governor to any CM in any part of India at any point of time since our Constitution came into force in 1950. If I am ignorant on this score, I would like to be educated by some actual correspondence," read the 13-page letter from Banerjee, sent in response to the governor's missives on April 23 and 24.
"These are not recent or first-time outbursts by you," it said.
The Chief Minister also said that the governor must "desist from intensifying efforts to usurp powers, especially at time of crisis."
"You are preaching constitutional norms without practising it, sermonising while violating it," Banerjee also said in her note.
The scathing piece of communication also called upon Dhankar to 'desist' from 'using official communication and logos for your continuous tweets on social media'.
In her letter, the Chief Minister also cited several Supreme Court judgments, which he said 'underline and emphasise the highly limited powers of a Governor in our constitutional scheme' and the deliberate ignoring of which lies at the 'base of your approach and is hence constitutionally impermissible.
The 13-page letter by Banerjee was in response to a 14-page letter by the state governor on April 24, in which he had signalled a virtual 'no-confidence' in the state administration's ability to manage the coronavirus crisis in the state. Dhankar had accused Banerjee of "abject failure in combatting and containing coronavirus in West Bengal" and minority appeasement in the last month's letters.
