Mamata meets Guv Dhankhar at Raj Bhavan, both discuss governance issues

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Thursday said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met him at Raj Bhavan and they discussed various issues of governance.

The meeting was held for over an hour, he said.

"Governor Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar and Chief Minister Smt Mamata Banerjee traversed issues of governance for over an hour at Raj Bhawan today," he wrote on Twitter.

Dhankhar also uploaded a video clip of the meeting in which the chief minister is seen exchanging views with the governor and his wife at Raj Bhavan.

However, there was no version from the chief minister's office about the meeting.

Notably, Dhankhar had recently invited Banerjee for a meeting to deliberate on the "worsening" law and order situation in the state.

Dhankhar had also claimed that the state of governance in West Bengal was “cliffhanging” and had been further strained by the barbarity witnessed in the Birbhum killings.

Eight people were burnt alive and one succumbed to injuries later, after assailants firebombed several houses in Birbhum's Bogtui village on March 21 hours after the murder of local TMC leader Bhadu Sheikh.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has been probing into the killings, and the agency on Thursday apprehended four West Bengal residents from Mumbai for their alleged involvement in the incident.

Dhankhar and Mamata Banerjee's TMC government have been at loggerheads ever since he assumed office in 2019 and the governor has often expressed concern over the law and order situation in the state.

The seemingly unending tug of war between the TMC government and Raj Bhavan reached a new height when Banerjee had in January told a press conference that she had blocked Dhankhar's official Twitter handle because of his posts repeatedly targeting her government.

Dhankhar had on March 9 took a dig at the chief minister, saying that she had applauded disorder in the assembly on the inaugural day of the last budget session of the House.

High drama was witnessed on March 7, the first day of the West Bengal assembly's budget session, when Dhankhar was forced to cut short his inaugural speech, amid noisy protests by BJP MLAs over the alleged violence in the recently concluded civic elections.