Happy with steps to restore peace: Tripathi

Sandip Chowdhury, TT, Calcutta, July 6: Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi said this evening that he was "happy" that steps were being taken to restore normality in Basirhat.

"I have already said what I had to say. I want peace to be restored, law and order to be restored," Tripathi said on his way out of an event of the RSS student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad at Mahajati Sadan.

"I am happy steps are being taken in that direction," he added.

The governor's comments came in response to questions by journalists about the controversy surrounding his phone call to the chief minister on the situation in Basirhat.

Yesterday, Raj Bhavan had issued a belligerent statement asking the chief minister to maintain peace "without making any distinction on the basis of caste, creed or community" instead of making accusations against the governor.

Tripathi's remarks came hours after BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha described the governor as "a sainik (soldier) of the Modi bahini (army)", handing the Trinamul Congress an opportunity to claim vindication of its stand on the issue.

"Trinamul thinks they will stop the governor by bad-mouthing him. But they are making a mistake here. He is a sainik of the Modi bahini. So, he will keep walking the path of truth," Sinha said at a programme on Red Road earlier in the day.

Trinamul secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said such statements only confirmed the "truth" about the party's allegations of the governor's proximity to the BJP.

"There is nothing left to be said. Today, the cat is out of the bag. We have been saying for the past few days that the governor's house has been transformed into a BJP office. The statement of Rahul Sinha officially certifies our claims," he said.

Told about Chatterjee's remark, Tripathi said in the evening: "I am what I am."

"What others say, I don't care," he added, in response to questions on whether he agreed with Sinha.

The BJP was quick to distance itself from Sinha's comments.

BJP national general secretary and Bengal minder Kailash Vijayvargiya said Sinha's remarks were "his own".

"The party does not agree with him. It is not the party's stand. The comments he made are his own," Vijayvargiya said.

He instead persisted with his party's criticism of Mamata Banerjee for allegedly demeaning the post of the governor and using derogatory remarks against him.

"She is making such comments out of her frustration for miserably failing to maintain law and order in the state - from the hills to the plains. Only to divert focus, she is attacking the governor and that too for discharging his duties as the constitutional head of the state," Vijayvargiya told a news conference.