The first session of the newly-constituted West Bengal assembly begins on Friday. There are concerns of it being a stormy start as it would begin with the governor's address.
West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had requested speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay for a live telecast of his speech in the assembly. His request, however, was turned down. The speaker and governor entered into a verbal duel after Bandyopadhyay wrote to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla about Dhankhar's interference in legislative proceedings of the state. Bandyopadhyay pointed out that the governor did not clear two crucial bills passed by the assembly. Dhankhar shot back saying that one bill had been withheld by the president while the other bill was erroneously presented before him. The errors were yet to be corrected by the state and legal department, the governor wrote.
Amid this, the refusal of the speaker to allow a live telecast of the governor's address grabbed eyeballs amid reports that Dhankhar might not read everything given to him or he might add his own words to the speech written by the state government. What the state government fears is that the governor would bring in the issue of post poll violence in Bengal in his address. The apprehension was further fuelled by former governor of Tripura and Meghalaya Tathagata Roy saying that it is not mandatory for a governor to read out the text presented to him by the state cabinet. "Former West Bengal governor Dharam Vira refused to that. I also refused to do that when I was in Tripura," said Roy.
Notwithstanding what Roy said, the governor's address during the assembly’s first session is to give an idea about the policies and programmes of his (governor's) state government. So, it is the responsibility of the governor to address the members about the policy and programmes of the state government as cleared by the state cabinet.
Experts said that the governor has every right to intervene when the policy or programmes cleared by the cabinet confront the acts passed by the parliament. In that case, the governor can send the text back to cabinet for revision. But he has not done so in this case.
As far as telecast is concerned, the speaker has the sole authority to decide whether a particular session would be telecast or broadcast and for how long.
However, controversies do not die down in Bengal and speculation is rife that the proceedings would be stormy in the House. But as Dhankhar himself is an expert on the constitution, he might hardly deviate from the rule of law.
