West Bengal: No one should cross Lakshman Rekha, says West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankar

KOLKATA: Two days after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that some people holding constitutional posts are acting like "mouthpieces of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)", state governor Jagdeep Dhankar said that nobody should cross Lakshman Rekha.
At an event ‘Chartered Accountants Association Conference’ at Salt Lake in Kolkata on Saturday, Dhankar said, “Often political meaning is read into it (Whatever he says).I as the governor of West Bengal am required more than anyone else to adhere to a mechanism that is spelt out for me in the Indian Constitution. I must do what I am supposed to do and must not do what I am not supposed to do. None of us should cross the Lakshman-Rekha.”
Though Dhankar didn’t mention any name, his comments came just after chief minister Mamata Banerjee saying that she didn’t prefer to make any comment on political posts, but there were some people who were behaving like like a "BJP mouthpiece". “You have seen what is going on in my state. They are trying to run a parallel administration,” the chief minister had said.
Even Trinamool Congress general secretary Partha Chatterjee said that the governor was not acting within his constitutional jurisdiction by commenting on matters relating to the working of the government.
The verbal spat between the state government and the governor ranged from a number of issues starting from Dhankar’s rushing to Jadavpur University to “rescue” Union minister Babul Supriyo to the state government’s refusal to provide the helicopter sought by Dhankhar to travel to Murshidabad for a programme and return to the city on Friday.
State Congress president Somen Mitra said, “I have not seen this kind of a verbal duel. What is in the Constitution and what is not - people will decide but this is not good for democracy. This is neither good for the state government nor it is good for the governor."