The Governor on Twitter!

Three running tweets from Shri Jagdeep Dhankar, His Excellency the Governor of West Bengal held my attention. I have reproduced them.

Tweet 1: Reports of monstrous corruption and incredible amassing of wealth by public servants @MamataOfficial, their cronies and middlemen are worrisome. Systemic failure to dent such nefariously flourishing corruption industry, an open secret and talk of town, is a slur on governance.

Tweet 2: Thorough probe and expose of mega corruption scam- channelization of ill-gotten wealth, its parking in assets in and out of country, by “men in uniform”
@KolkataPolice@WBPolice ,their cronies called for.

Tweet 3: Am Committed to ensure exemplary consequences to these corrupt elements.
These flourishing “dens of corruption” must be busted so that democracy survives. Time for “kingpins of corruption “to be on the run and face wrath of law. It will be travesty of justice if corrupt can force honest ones to be on run. This would be death knell of democracy.

The Governor does not have authority like the High court or the Supreme Court to initiate any Suo motu action, save flag the ‘specific’ information to the Ministry of Home Affairs or the DoPT, demanding them to initiate actions. The procedures are unambiguous and well laid in our system.

The Governor taking to social networks to accuse nameless public servants, officers, men-in-uniform, of ‘mega corruption’ is perhaps the harshest comment coming from the constitutional head of the State. In the absence of names, none can explain or challenge the Tweets. He should produce evidence and name, shame the corrupt officers and be ready to face a legal reprimand in case of unfounded allegations. Alternatively and ideally, he must take to the usual constitutional recourse that is available to him and file the confidential reports as per the procedure.

Repeated berating on Twitter, loses the significance of the seriousness and the integrity of the accusations. A governor in my humble opinion must ensure the respectability demanded by his office.

Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix