After fewer than four years in office, Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose resigns, and Mamata suggests a successor.

After three and a half years in office, West Bengal Governor C. V. Ananda Bose abruptly resigned on Thursday night, sparking a political spat in the election-bound state. 

Reports that R. N. Ravi, whose disagreements with the M. K. Stalin-led government have often made headlines, may be moved to Bengal as a temporary substitute gave the development more momentum. Former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Bose, who was appointed governor of Bengal in November 2022, told news agency  that he had served in the position for a sufficient amount of time, but he did not explain why.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed “shock” on X after learning about the development from Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Shah might have put pressure on Bose “to serve certain political interests,” according to her.

“I am shocked and deeply concerned by the sudden news of the resignation of Shri C. V. Ananda Bose, the governor of West Bengal,” Banerjee wrote on X minutes after the news became public.

“The reasons behind his resignation are not known to me at this moment. However, given the prevailing circumstances, I would not be surprised if the Governor has been subjected to some pressure from the Union Home Minister to serve certain political interests on the eve of the forthcoming state Assembly elections,” Banerjee wrote.

Banerjee said Shah told her that Ravi, a former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer with experience in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB), would replace Bose.

“Union home minister just informed me that Shri R.N. Ravi is being appointed as Governor of West Bengal. He never consulted me as per the established convention in this regard,” wrote the Trinamool Congress chief.

“Such actions undermine the spirit of the Constitution of India and strike at the very foundation of our federal structure. The Centre must respect the principles of cooperative federalism and refrain from taking unilateral decisions that erode democratic conventions and the dignity of States,” she added.

Samik Bhattacharya, the state president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, stated that Bose may have chosen to resign due to health concerns after receiving a medical examination at Kolkata’s Eastern Command Hospital a few months ago. Bose and the TMC government disagreed on a number of matters.

Five days before the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Bengal and just hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived at Raj Bhavan to spend the night during a campaign tour, on May 2, 2024, a woman who lived in the staff quarters on campus and worked as temporary staff at Kolkata’s Raj Bhavan filed a police complaint, claiming that Bose had molested her inside his office.

In a further instance, on July 12, 2024, the government submitted a special leave plea (SLP) to the Supreme Court of India, claiming that Bose had refused to sign eight bills that the Assembly had enacted in 2022 and 2023.

Six of these eight bills were approved in 2022 while Dhankhar was the governor of Bengal. The bills aim to replace the governor with the education minister as a visitor at private institutions and the chief minister as chancellor of all state-run and state-aided universities. The case has not yet been resolved in court.