KOLKATA: Hardly an hour after the Union Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar left the Lok Bhavan on Saturday afternoon, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee paid a courtesy visit to Governor RN Ravi at the same venue in Kolkata.
She spent about an hour there at the Lok Bhavan. Mamata, while entering the Lok Bhavan, told reporters waiting at its gate that she had been invited for tea by the newly appointed governor when he took the oath of office on March 12.
“It is just a courtesy visit. Nothing else. I have no agenda,” she told reporters. The chief minister had earlier questioned the sudden resignation of previous Governor CV Ananda Bose and the appointment of Ravi to the post.
The Centre suddenly moved the former Governor C V Ananda Bose out of Lok Bhavan during first week of March after three and a half years in office and announced Ravi, a retired IPS officer of 1976 batch, who served as Governor of Tamil Nadu, as the new Governor of Bengal.
Bose’ sudden removal from Lok Bhavan prompted Mamata to make scathing attacks on the Union Home Minister Amit Shah as he had allegedly conspired to force Bose to resign ahead of the upcoming assembly polls in the state.
She had also attacked the new Governor branding him as ‘BJP cadre.’ Mamata had also slammed Ravi, terming him a "BJP cadre" and virtually signalling an escalating faceoff between the state secretariat Nabanna and Lok Bhavan in the coming days.
She had claimed that the sudden resignation of C V Ananda Bose as Governor of West Bengal was the result of pressure allegedly created by the BJP led government at the Centre.
Addressing supporters of her party, Trinamool Congress, at the dharna site at Esplanade Metro Channel protesting against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, Mamata had accused the Centre of attempting to convert Lok Bhavan into a political outpost in the run up to the Assembly elections scheduled in the state in April.
"Do you know how C V Ananda Bose was removed? I know everything. He was threatened.
They want to distribute money from Lok Bhavan. They want Lok Bhavan to be converted into a BJP party office. But everybody may not agree to such whims and fancies of Delhi," she had alleged, while attacking the new Governor and saying, “Remember that Bengal is a tough turf.”
Referring to Tamil Nadu, where Ravi is also the existing Governor, Mamata had alleged, “He has also disturbed the Chief Minister Stalin there. The newcomer is a BJP cadre who has undergone parades conducted by the party.”