Mamata Banerjee sends letter to governor strongly objecting to Foundation Day
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee shot off a letter to Governor CV Ananda Bose on Monday, June 19, objecting strongly to his decision to celebrate June 20 as Bengal’s Foundation Day. On this day in 1947 Bengal was officially divided into West Bengal and East Bengal (later to become Bangladesh).
“Since independence, we in West Bengal have never rejoiced over or commemorated or celebrated any day as the Foundation Day of West Bengal. Rather, we have seen the partition as a result of unleashing of communal force that could not be resisted at that point in time,” Banerjee said in her letter.
She said she was “stunned and shocked” to know of the decision by Raj Bhavan to celebrate June 20 as the Foundation Day.
In the letter, she also reminded the governor of his agreeing in a telephonic conversation with her to the decision being a “unilateral and non-consultative” one, done “without following any procedure of obtaining necessary consent of the state cabinet and the state legislature”.
The partition involved uprooting of lakhs of people across the border and the death and displacement of innumerable families, she said in the letter.
The governor, however, went ahead with the cultural programme today at his office-cum-residence, Raj Bhavan, without any representation from the state government.
At the programme, Bose spoke on “zero tolerance” for violence and emphasised the right of the common people to vote freely.
On Monday, President Droupadi Murmu had congratulated the people of the state on its Foundation Day.
