Kolkata, (Samajweekly) After much controversy West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has consented to conduct the oath taking ceremony of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and two other MLAs who have recently won in the by-election, at the state legislative assembly on October 7.
“Governor WB Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar would administer oath/affirmation to the elected members to the WBLA, viz, MAMATA BANERJEE, JAKIR HOSSIAN and AMIRUL ISLAM at the premises of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly on 7 October, 2021 at 2 pm,” Dhankhar tweeted.
“Earlier it was decided that the oath taking ceremony will take place at 11.45 a.m. but later it was decided that it would be deferred and the ceremony will take place at 2 p.m. Accordingly, the governor was informed and he consented to that,” a senior Trinamool Congress minister said.
The oath taking ceremony of the chief minister triggered controversy when Dhankhar wrote a letter to the Speaker of the Assembly Biman Banerjee saying that the practice and proceedings at the level of the assembly and the government have apparently emanated from misconception of law, leaving it to speculation whether the governor would go to the assembly for the oath taking ceremony as requested by the state government.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her desire to take the oath in the assembly on October 7. On October 1, the Speaker wrote to the Governor asking him to come to the assembly for the oath taking ceremony of the newly elected members. Speaker who generally conducts the oath taking of the members of the assembly had to write to the governor because Dhankhar had withdrawn assembly speaker Biman Banerjee’s power to administer the oath of office to the members of the state legislature in the middle of September.
The power has been granted to the Speaker by the Governor to administer the oath of office to the new MLAs under Article 188 of the Constitution. Officials said that this is the first time a Governor had withdrawn the delegated power to the Speaker thus escalating tension. However, the Speaker refused to comment on the issue.
Parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee said, “We have requested the Governor to come down to the Vidhan Sabha on October 7 before noon for the swearing-in of the CM and two other MLAs. We wanted the swearing-in to be held at Vidhan Sabha, so we had sent the request to the Governor. Hope the Governor will come to the assembly.”
Dhankhar in reply to the Speaker wrote: “A note had been sent on October 1 where I had been requested to make the Speaker of state assembly be appointed by the Governor under Article 188 of the Constitution to administer Oath/Affirmation on October 4, to the newly-elected MLAs”.
“The practice and proceedings at the level of the assembly and the government have apparently emanated from misconception of law. Once in terms of the legal regime applicable, the result of the by-elections is gazetted, the matter would through appropriate channels be brought to my notice where a call as deemed appropriate under Article 188 of the Constitution would be taken,” he added.
