West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar said on Wednesday that former minister Suvendu Adhikari has sought his intervention so that the state police is dissuaded from implicating him in criminal cases out of “political vendetta”. Sharing the copy of a letter that Adhikari wrote to him, Dhankhar said that he was taking “expected steps”.
The letter came to the fore hours after Adhikari submitted his resignation as an MLA amid speculations of him switching over to the BJP from the Trinamool Congress. “I am constrained to seek your intervention as constitutional head so that police and administration apparatus in the state is dissuaded from implicating me and my associate followers in criminal cases out of political motivation and vendetta,” Adhikari stated in the letter, shared by the governor on Twitter.
Claiming that he had quit the ministry dictated by a sense of duty and public welfare, Adhikari wrote that this change of political stance is spurring those in authority to be in vendetta mode against him. He gave up the cabinet portfolios in the Mamata Banerjee government on November 27.
“Unleashing police repression by implication in criminal cases on political considerations is certainly an alarming indicator of governance away from rule of law,” the former Transport minister wrote. Urging the governor to initiate appropriate steps so that those concerned in police and administration desist from implicating him in a politically motivated manner, he wrote “surely ‘political bonhomie’ with the ruling party or dispensation cannot be essential requisite for enjoying liberty and human rights, as is the situation presently”.
Adhikari, a leader with a mass base, holds considerable clout in Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur and some other parts of south Bengal. He played a significant role in the anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram that catapulted Mamata Banerjee to power in the state in 2011.
Adhikari held a closed door meeting with disgruntled leaders of the party including senior MP Sunil Mandal and Asansol civic body chief Jitendra Tiwari here, sources said. The closed door meeting began at 7 PM is still on.
Adhikari went to Mandals residence at Kanksa in Paschim Bardhaman district. Mandal, a two-time Bardhaman Purba Lok Sabha MP, welcomed Adhikari and took him inside, the sources said. He had came out in support of Adhikari in the morning and blamed the party for not addressing the grievances on time as a sense of drift has crept in.
Within a few minutes, Tiwari, who had recently slammed the state government for depriving the industrial town of Asansol of central funds for political reasons, was also seen entering the residence, the sources said. Tiwari is MLA from Pandabeswar assembly segment.
Few other disgruntled TMC leaders from Birbhum, Bardhaman too had joined the meeting, they added.
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