NDA’s vice-president nominee Dhankar knows his (constitutional) articles well!

The ‘people’s governor’ exercises his Constitutional powers well by making West Bengal toe the line

In West Bengal, the state government and the governor have distinctive—at times opposing—stands on matters of policy, and other state-related concerns. As is evident from his Twitter posts, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has to keep reminding the state, from time to time, that he, as the constitutional head of the state, is also empowered with certain rights.

And Dhankar has been quite diligent about exercising them. For example, on this past New Year’s Day, the governor referred to Article 165(2) of the Constitution, and directed the state government to provide the Advocate General the “entire documentation” of a local municipal (amendment) bill.

The Articles 165(2) states: “It shall be the duty of the Advocate General … to perform such other duties of a legal character, as may from time to time be referred or assigned to him by the Governor…”

The governor, in another instance, made common people look up Article 219 of the Constitution of India. According to the article, a person appointed to be a judge of a high court is to make an oath before the Governor or some person appointed by him.

While seeking information from the state, Dhankhar has brought up Article 167 on several occasions. In a January 20 tweet, he also mentioned Article 166(3).

Article 167 enlists the duties of a chief minister in terms of furnishing information to a governor, while Article 166 talks about the conduct of the business of the government of a state.

The governor, frequently, schools the state government about the rights and duties of the government as well as the governor.

“Guv WB: Mandated under Article 159 of the Constitution to ensure none in the state ‘blocks’ Constitutional Norms and Rules of Law and those in authority ‘bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India’,” Governor Dhankhar tweeted on January 31.

Article 159, which concerns the oath or affirmation by the governor to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law, also comes up on several occasions in Dhankar’s tweets. The article also directs the governor to devote to the service and well-being of the people of the state.

Exercising his powers, conferred upon him by sub-clause (a) of clause (2) of Article 174, he has ‘prorogued’ the assembly on, and with effect from, February 12, 2022.

Article 174 is about the sessions of the state legislature, prorogation and dissolution. When the media reported incorrectly, the governor informed: “WB Guv: in view of inappropriate reporting in a section of media it is indicated that taking note of govt recommendation seeking proroguing of assembly, Guv in the exercise of the powers conferred upon him by article 174 (2)(a) the Constitution has prorogued WBLA w.e.f. Feb 12, 2022.”

On February 19, 2022, chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s recommendation to summon assembly on March 7 “had to be returned for constitutional compliance” because the rules state that the Governor “summons” the assembly on the “recommendations made by the Cabinet after due compliance of Rules of Business under article 166(3) of constitution” he had posted on Twitter with the image of the letter in which he states the recommendation was not “in conformity with the applicable constitutional prescriptions”.

Continuing with the thought in another post, Dhankar said, “Rules of Business under article 166(3) spells out the procedure in detail. Only option was to remit file...”

One decision, and subsequent tweets, that Dhankhar made would go down in history as high drama in West Bengal politics. On February 24, 2022, the governor had tweeted that a state assembly meeting after midnight was “unusual and history of sorts in making, but that is Cabinet Decision” and had accepted the proposal.

In following tweets, Dhankar called out on the social media platform the chief secretary for “usual compliance failure”, because of repeated attempts to reach him and discuss the “somewhat odd” timing for the assembly session after midnight (at 2 am).

In another tweet, he called it "ironical" that the Trinamool Congress was “blazing against the Guv on all cylinders” despite him giving assent to prorogue the assembly on the asked time.

But in the end, Dhankar was vindicated when the chief secretary sent a letter—which then Dhankar tweeted—that clarified it was a “typographical error”.