Dhankhar takes dig at Mamata, says she applauded disorder in the House

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday took a dig at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying she has applauded disorder in the House on the inaugural day of the budget session of the House when he had to cut short his inaugural speech and table it instead.

Dhankhar said he was virtually subjected to "gherao" by the ministers and the ruling TMC MLAs in the Assembly during the incident on Monday.

His comment followed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee coming out in praise of her women MLAs on Tuesday for requesting the governor to read his inaugural speech in the House amid vociferous protests by BJP lawmakers.

Dhankhar had asked Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay a day ago to meet him on the incident.

He tweeted, "There can be no justification to sanctify, much less applaud, gherao/blockade' of Guv in the hallowed precincts of august WBLA."

"Reflect !! Where are we heading ! and Why ! Hon'ble CM applauding What ! Disorder in House ! We all need to work to blossom democracy," the governor said attaching a video of the chief minister's speech.

High drama was witnessed on the first day of the West Bengal assembly's budget session when Dhankhar was forced to cut short his inaugural speech and table the address amidst noisy protests by BJP MLAs over the alleged violence in the recently concluded civic elections. Amid the ruckus, women MLAs of the ruling TMC were seen pleading with the governor to deliver his speech.

Dhankhar in his letter to the speaker said, "How ironical that the treasury benches, principal stakeholder in the address of the governor, were also in overdrive to contribute to the disorder in the House that was already witnessing unruly Opposition protests.

Reacting to his tweets, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, "The governor had faced unruly behaviour from BJP MLAs on the first day of Assembly but he chooses to overlook that to fix the blame on Trinamool which was only concerned that he could complete his customary budget speech and did not face any misbehavior.

"The tweet by governor also reveals his nexus with BJP and indicates his original plan to leave the Assembly midway without completing the procedure and our women MLAs didn't allow that to happen," Ghosh said.