KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress on Saturday hit back at outgoing West Bengal Governor K N Tripathi for his comment that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's appeasement policy had adversely affected the social harmony of the state, asking was it an "attempt to score brownie points".
The TMC along with opposition CPI-M and Congress termed the comment untimely.
Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee wondered why Tripathi did not say this earlier.
The next governor, Jagdeep Dhankar will take oath on July 30.
"Wasn't it an attempt to score brownie points? That's why we (TMC) had said before that the Raj Bhavan has turned into a BJP party office. This has now been proved to be true," Chatterjee said in a sharp comment.
Tripathi had differences of opinion with Banerjee several times on various issues during his five-year tenure in the Raj Bhavan.
Chatterjee, who is also the state education and parliamentary affairs minister, said, "I don't think that the TMC government's relation with the outgoing governor during his tenure was adverse. Any way this observation by him won't glorify the chair of the governor."
Reacting to Tripathi's observation that law and order in the state require a lot of improvement and that Banerjee should look at every citizen equally, CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said it was untimely though not totally wrong.
"He (governor) should not have said this from the Raj Bhavan even though what he said was not entirely wrong."
The BJP had been enthused in its communal activities by the actions and wrong policies of the TMC, Chakraborty alleged.
Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Pradip Bhattacharya wondered why the outgoing governor made the statements at the end of his tenure.
"Had he said it earlier, the situation would have improved. This is not expected from a governor at the end of his tenure. We don't want to see the state secretariat or Raj Bhavan turn into offices of any political party," he said.
State Congress president Somen Mitra expressed similar views.
"Isn't it his failure? Why did he fail to protest or condemn the appeasement? Isn't it a weak man's cry," he asked.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh and the party's national secretary Rahul Sinha justified the governor's comments.
Tripathi had cautioned the state government earlier too on these issues, they said.
The governor had categorically raised the issue of clashes at Basirhat and Asansol that took a communal turn but the state government did not give any importance to his utterances, they added.
Sinha claimed that many TMC leaders who were involved in various scams would have to face the process of law by Durga Puja festival this year.