Jagdeep Dhankhar calls for ‘violence-free Bengal’

Kolkata: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has appealed for a “violence-free” state in 2020 when the state will go to the Municipal Elections.

Referring to the largescale damage of railway properties by an angry mob during the recent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens as a “matter of past”, he called on others to ensure the West Bengal gets the “most peaceful state” status in the country.

The Governor later described his meeting with state education minister Partha Chatterjee, who visited him at Raj Bhavan on chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s direction on the recent students’ agitation against the Chancellor at Jadavpur University, as “pleasant and cordial” before greeting the Trinamul Congress supremo and her cabinet colleagues on the occasion of the New Year.

In his New Year message on Tuesday Mr Dhankhar stated, “I pray to Almighty to bless our State of West Bengal with peace, tranquillity and growth shorn of any violence. We should all work in togetherness to ensure that our State of West Bengal is at the Apex of the Indian Union and gets the status of being the most peaceful state. This would be a desirable break from the events of violence in recent years that have marred the image of the state and hampered its progress.”

He observed, “On some counts, 2019 has been worrisome and we all will strive to have a new chapter in 2020. Violence resulting in damage to public property, rail property and private property in 2019 has not been appreciated and will be a matter of past. I take this opportunity to call upon everyone in the state to set a high benchmark of performance and act as per law so that our image is one of peace-loving state that shuns violence of all forms. West Bengal is the land of great seers and servants.”