Bengal governor drags Prashant Kishor’s I-PAC into tiff with TMC MPs

TMC MPs had said Dhankhar had fallen prey to fake news on Boral dead bodies incident

collage mamata (Clockwise) A collage showing Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar (Salil Bera), Prashant Kishor (via Twitter) and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee (Salil Bera)

The war of words between West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and MPs of the Trinamool Congress took a new turn on Monday. Dhankhar dragged in I-PAC—the political advocacy company of election strategist Prashant Kishor—into the tiff, alleging that the social media handles of senior TMC MPs were handled by the I-PAC team, not by the political leaders.

The spat between Dhankhar and the TMC MPs began over the issue of 14 dead bodies being dragged around by Kolkata municipal authorities last week. There were protests by people over taking of these bodies to crematoriums at Boral in Garia police station area, and people forced the KMC staff to take the bodies away.

Dhankhar sought a detailed report from the home department and Kolkata corporation, calling the incident grave. “This barbarity is indelible taint on humanity. Disposal of dead body is solemn act, dominated by spirituality,” he said then.

The commissioner of the Kolkata corporation met the governor personally after two days, and home department came out with a report, saying the bodies were unclaimed and were stacked at the morgue for days.

In an apparently move to pave way for storing dead bodies of COVID-19 patients, it was urgent for hospitals to dispose the bodies. But what concerned local people of Boral was the way bodies were handled and dragged.

It was then senior party members of the Trinamool Congress called the videos of the incident as “fake” and alleged the governor had fallen prey to “falsehood”.

Three MPs—Mahua Maitra, Dinesh Trivedi and Derek O’ Brien—took to Twitter to lambast Dhankhar.

Dhankhar was particularly upset with the choice of words used against him by former Union railway minister Dinesh Trivedi.

Dhankhar—who is said to be personal friends with Trivedi—called Trivedi’s comment as “compromised”.

“What an irony! Even image conscious leaders have been IPACked. How a life long earned reputation gets so capsized! People’s mandate goes for a song by such betrayal by elected representatives,” said Dhankhar.

He, however, further said that he would not reveal all the “secrets”.

Trivedi shot back, saying that governor’s office is being highly “compromised”.

Dhankhar clearly disputed the claim that the videos were all fakes.

An officer at Dhankhar’s office said “The honourable governor did not get any report of the lab, which could suggest the videos as [being] fake. The MPs and senior leaders are themselves hitting him badly, lowering his office by claiming that the governor was trapped into fake posts.”

What stirred the hornet’s nest was Dhankhar’s mentioning of I-PAC as the brain behind attacking the governor personally and his office as well. The governor has dragged the private poll strategist’s organisation into the tussle between him and MPs of TMC. That way governor himself became part of the politics of the state, which should have been between BJP and TMC, instead of governor and TMC.

Recently, Kishor asked all MPs and MLAs of TMC to be very active on social media particularly in Facebook and Twitter as his organisation has found around 60 lakh social medial handles to promote Narendra Modi and BJP in West Bengal.

In a secret report, Kishor, sources said, pointed out the vulnerability the TMC is facing ahead of the Assembly elections in 2021 because of huge social media marketing by BJP in West Bengal—from cities to small towns and then further to villages.

Did I-PAC handle the Twitter profile accounts of the senior leaders and MPs?

An I-PAC official, “No, never. Our job is to advise the party.”