When West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was announced as a surprise alternative to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the post of Vice President, political observers in Kolkata, where he engaged in an almost daily war with chief ministers over the past three years Huh. Minister Mamata Banerjee started reading the signals being sent by top BJP leaders.
Taking the name of Dhankhar, who till July 2019 was little known outside the legal fraternity of Jaipur and the city, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a way sounded the election bugle for Rajasthan, where assembly elections would be held next year, and Jat one. play an important role. vote bank.
Kolkata analysts see a message being sent to Banerjee in the move – that despite her apparent displeasure over the governor’s displeasure against her government, and several representations made by Trinamool Congress MPs to Home Minister Amit Shah for her removal. . Dhankhar was being rewarded with a high rank from the Raj Bhavan.
On previous occasions, the governor and the West Bengal government had quarreled, as Gopalkrishna Gandhi and the then Left Front chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, had differences over police firing at Nandigram in West Bengal’s East Midnapore district on March 14. 2007, resulting in the death of 14 people.
But the government-governor dispute has never been a daily affair in West Bengal, as it was during Dhankhar’s tenure. He was the first governor of the state during whose tenure the Raj Bhavan press conference became an almost daily affair, giving Dhankhar a platform to target the Trinamool government.
In an unprecedented move, the Chief Minister blocked Dhankhar from his Twitter handle.
Dhankhar is also the first governor to have expressed his displeasure towards the state government through regular Twitter posts. The Trinamool Congress leadership was indeed upset that Dhankhar had started similar firing at official functions held in the West Bengal Assembly complex.
Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee had even once said that she would have to consider restricting the presence of the Governor in the courtyard of the House, something that had never been heard in a parliamentary democracy if this continued.
Dhankhar, a seasoned lawyer, has said that he is exercising his power and authority as a governor given by the Constitution, which no other governor before him had cared to do.
In March this year, Dhankhar made his presence as the chief guest at a seminar on ‘Role of Governors and Legislators in Advancing Democracy’ organized by the Rajasthan chapter of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association at the Vidhan Sabha building in Jaipur.
There he poured his heart out saying that the governor is like a punching bag, always said to be an agent of the ruling party. He clarified that he was not a “proactive governor”, but a “copybook governor”, who believed strongly in the rule of law.
Dhankhar then surprised his audience by announcing: “People may not know it, but I have a brother-sister relationship with the chief minister,” he said.
“How can the governor and the chief minister fight in public?” He asked and added: “I have always tried and will continue to cooperate with the government, but this cooperation is not possible with one hand. If there is no communication between the Chief Minister and the Governor, we will be distracted from democracy.”
Before July 30, 2019, when he was appointed Governor of West Bengal, Dhankhar may not have found an audience, who, being a follower of late Jat leader Devi Lal, converted briefly to become Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs. they were finished. -Chandrasekhar Sarkar (1990–91), found himself drifting into the Congress, where Ashok Gehlot ignored him, and finally switched to the BJP in 2003, kept at a distance by the then state party supremo and chief. Minister Vasundhara Raje
Born in a Jat family in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan on May 18, 1951, Dhankhar attended Sainik School in Chittorgarh, graduated from Rajasthan University, and became a follower of Devi Lal, who served twice as Chief Minister of Haryana. served. and was deputy prime minister in the governments of VP Singh and Chandrashekhar between 1989 and 1991.
In 1989, when the Janata Dal under VP Singh challenged Rajiv Gandhi, Dhankhar got the party’s Lok Sabha ticket from Jhunjhunu, where he defeated sitting MP (and decorated war hero) Mohammad Ayub Khan by an impressive margin of four. . Million votes. Dhankhar was a member of the Ninth Lok Sabha (1989–91), and when Chandrashekhar became prime minister for seven months (from November 1990 to June 1991), he was elected to the ministry of the lame-duck.
In the June 1991 general elections, Dhankhar could not retain his seat (Khan was re-elected and made a minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government). With his mentor Devilal’s political fortunes on the decline, Dhankhar decided to join the Congress, which gave him an assembly ticket and he was elected as an MLA from Kishangarh in Ajmer district in 1993. He completed his full term in Rajasthan. 10th Legislative Assembly till 1998.
This was his last public office till he was made the Governor of West Bengal. Of course, he became the President of the Rajasthan High Court Bar Association at a time when his political career was not taking off, but it did not come with the perks, privileges and visibility associated with the occupier of the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata. , which was built in line with the family home of Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of the British Raj.
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