Governor-Chief Minister conflict of West Bengal

The conflict between Governor of West Bengal and Chief Minister of West Bengal in the state of West Bengal, India is quite common since 1967. The conflict continues to see a rise between them. The conflict is between the constitutional head of the state and the elected representative of the state.

Background
Starting from 1967, the conflict between the Governor and the Chief Minister started in West Bengal, gradually due to difference of thoughts, ideas and even works. The conflict was started from the differences between the then Governor Dharma Vira and the Chief Minister Ajoy Mukherjee during proving of majority of the United Front in the assembly.

At that time, Governor sent a recommendation to the centre, which led to the dismissal of the state government and later, the state went on towards President's rule.

After the return of the power to the United Front in 1969, Governor in his address, refused to read the paragraph where it was written of self-criticizing of the decision of removal of the government.

The same conflict continued when in 1972 during the rule of Indian National Congress, the Left front came into power in Bengal. At that time, the Governor was B. D. Pande. At that time, the Left front even termed Pande as "Bangla Daman Pandey" (transl. Bengal destroyer Pandey). The term was coined by CPI(M) General Secretary Promode Dasgupta.

Succeeding Pande, now Anant Prashad Sharma came as Governor in 1984. He objected about the nomination of the vice-chancellor of University of Calcutta. He wanted his own candidate to be given instead of the selection of Left-ruled government.

Following such activities frequently by the Governor, infuriated Left-front government decided to boycott all the programs of the Governor and also to sent a report to the Sarkaria Commission on removal of the post of Governor in West Bengal.

In 2007, the remarks of the then Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi against Nandigram violence created a new tussle of war between the state government and the Governor. Due to his comment, many CPI(M) leaders told him to join active politics, but he denied. Although, then opposition party Trinamool Congress welcomed his remarks on the violence.

Following the power change from Left to Trinamool Congress, the tussle war continued. the then Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi had a very cordial relationship with state government, but later on, criticized her work and administration, which lead to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee insulted him.

The relationship worsened even more when Jagdeep Dhankhar took over as Governor in 2019. It not only made disagreements between the two, but also public attacks to each other.

The worsening of relationship even led to CM Mamata Banerjee to block Governor Dhankhar's official social media accounts, due to frequent posts criticizing Banerjee's administration on the mishandling of COVID and other issues by Dhankhar.