Twitter war between Bengal Education Minister, Governor

Kolkata: A Rwitter war broke out between the West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and the state government on Sunday after Education Minister Partha Chatterjee wrote to him, giving details of the circumstances under which some universities were forced to put on hold programmes organised by them.

The Governor had earlier expressed his annoyance over the programmes not taking place, besides complaining about protestors preventing him from attending the Jadavpur University convocation and its court meeting this week.

A peeved Dhankhar had then directed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to meet him, but she instead referred the matter to the Education Minister as the issues pertained to his department.

On Saturday, Dhankhar made public Banerjee's letter on Twitter. On Sunday, Chatterjee also put his reply on his Twitter handle.

This further angered the Governor, who twitted that he was "frankly amused".

"Hon'ble CM communication reflected farsighted approach and hence my step. Hon'ble Minister may check a critical communication of CM was on screen of all channels. No time for tit for tat. Hope we'll move ahead as indicated by CM and discuss issues across," he said.

Chatterjee, in his reply, said the JU students have joined in the widespread protests against the new citizenship law. The state government was also strongly opposed to the legislation and held protests against it, he said.

Regarding the stalling of programmes in other universities, the minister said the decisions were taken based on the circumstances. As universities were self-governing bodies, the state government never interfered in these matters.

The Education Minister also attached on Twitter a detailed note on the "achievements of the school education department".