Known to speak and do his mind, 74-year-old Jagdeep Dhankhar rose to fame following his several run-ins with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee when he was the governor of West Bengal from 2019 to 2022.AdvertisementBorn in village Kithana, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan on May 18, 1951, Dhankhar stirred a political controversy after resigning as V-P last evening.As a class 6 student he would travel 5 km a day to Government Middle School, Ghardhana, along with other village students. Later in 1962, Dhankhar successfully passed the Chittorgarh, Sainik School Entrance Examination and finished school with full merit scholarship. He has frequently mentioned of his Sainik school roots in his speeches.A graduate in physics and later law from the University of Rajasthan, he was designated senior advocate by the High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan from March 1990 onwards.He made his political forays in 1993 with election as MLA from Ajmer’s Kishangarg, went on to serve as Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs under late PM Chandra Shekhar and entered the ninth Lok Sabha in 1989 from Jhunjhunu.The outspoken former V-P, however, owes much of his fame to his stint as Bengal governor where several demands for his removal were made much before the opposition moved a motion in Rajya Sabha last December to impeach him for being a “spokesperson of the government.”When he was Governor of Bengal, five Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs in December 2020, presented a memorandum to the then President, Ramnath Kovind, seeking his removal. They accused him of taking orders from “political masters in Delhi” and of targeting the state government to promote a political agenda.In 2021, Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee complained to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla about “excessive interference” by Dhankhar in the functioning of the Assembly. Banerjee said that despite being passed by the Assembly, several Bills were lying with the Governor for approval.Again in February 2022, a PIL in Calcutta HC sought to direct the Centre to remove Dhankhar since he “was acting as the mouthpiece of the BJP and was interfering in the functioning of the state government and maligning its image”. The petition was dismissed.A particular incident that placed him in favour with the ruling BJP at the Centre happened in September 2019.After being sworn in as the Governor on July 30, 2019, Dhankhar on September 21 went to Jadavpur University to personally rescue Babul Supriyo (now in TMC), who then was an MoS in PM Narendra Modi government) from a blockade mounted by the Left-wing students of the institution.The Jadavpur University Vice-Chancellor, sensing trouble, admitted himself to a hospital citing health grounds, while Mamata refused to send the police to the varsity in the absence of a request from the V-C. Then Dhankhar, in his capacity as JU Chancellor, went to the campus, picked up Supriyo in his limousine and rescued him.Later, when Mamata refused to give him a helicopter for going to Malda to attend a college function, Dhankhar and his wife Sudesh travelled by road covering 600 km in a day.Home Minister Amit Shah had then made arrangements for Dhankhar to travel by a helicopter belonging to paramilitary forces.Again in 2021, when BJP workers took shelter in Assam fearing post-poll violence by TMC, Dhankhar visited them, irritating the CM.As Vice-President also, Dhankhar spoke his mind — questioning the government for not talking to the farmers, asking why no case was registered in the Justice Yashwant Varma matter and also routinely attacking the higher judiciary for acting as a “super Parliament.”
Known for speaking his mind, Dhankhar rose to fame after run-ins with Mamata Banerjee
