KOLKATA: Hitting out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Governor Jagdeep Dhankar on Sunday claimed businessman, officials, politicians among others in the state have approached him claiming their privacy is being compromised. Dhankar’s attack came after Mamata claimed her phone was being tapped as part of surveillance by the Centre.
The conflict between the state government and the constitutional head of the state, that observed a brief ceasefire, emerged after WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging platform, said it had earlier informed Indian authorities about a privacy breach.
Referring to Mamata’s claim, Dhankar, in an event organised by Marwari Mahila Samity in Kolkata, said only she knows what evidence she has to substantiate her claims. “CM Mamata Banerjee knows what evidence she has and on what basis she made the comment on tapping. I can say that several people including businessmen, officials and politicians met me and told me that their privacy is being compromised in Bengal,’’ the Governor said.
Reacting to it, Trinamool’s secretary-general Partha Chatterjee accused Dhankar of acting like a spokesperson of a political party. “Let him release the list of people whom he met. You will see these people belong to the BJP. Why does he always react to the statements made by our chief minister? Why doesn’t he comment on BJP president Dilip Ghosh’s statements? General people in Bengal are intelligent enough to understand why he is making such comments,” Chatterjee said.
In an apparent reference to Trinamool’s stand on the abrogation of Article 370 in the valley, Dhankar said, “A prolonged illness was cured after 70 years in Kashmir. I would like to tell them if you want to do politics, then look at yourself also. I am pained when I see violence in Bengal and violence executed with political motives.’’
War of words
When Dhankar condemned the Murshidabad triple murder in which on of the victims was claimed to be a RSS worker, Trinamool said the Governor was crossing his constitutional limits