The governor-designate of West Bengal Kesari Nath Tripathi on Tueday said he was looking forward to an excellent relationship with the Trinamool Congress government. Speaking to The Indian Express over telephone from his hometown Allahabad, the octogenarian, who is coming to Kolkata next week, said: “There should not be any apprehension about the relationship between me and the state government led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee. We will be on excellent terms. Infact, I am looking forward to a fabulous time in Kolkata.” He added the chief minister had called him in the morning, but did not elaborate on his conversation with Mamata. A three-time Speaker of Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Tripathi had visited Kolkata on two occasions earlier. Meanwhile, at Kolaghat in East Midnapore district where she presided over a meeting of district officials and took stock of development projects, Mamata said she spoke to Tripathi. “He is welcome to Bengal. I will meet him once I return from Darjeeling,” said the chief minister, whose three-day trip to the hill station begins on Wednesday. Regarding Tripathi’s appointment, Bengal minister for panchayats Subrata Mukherjee told The Indian Express: “The powers, functions, duties and responsibilities of the state government and the governor have been well defined by our constitution. So long as the two follow the norms, there will be no cause for friction.” The BJP, too, expressed happiness over the appointment. “He is an honest, nice and straight forward man. We welcome him,’’ Darjeeling MP S S Ahluwalia told The Indian Express. The party’s former state president Tathagata Roy agreed. “I know him personally. He is a gentleman and nobody should have a problem in working with him,’’ Roy said. The Congress, on its part, said: “We are not bothered about the background he (Tripathi) comes from. We will only want him to be fair and to hear us out if we approach him with a petition,” Adhir Choudhury, West Bengal Pradesh Congress president and Baharampur MP, told The Indian Express. The CPI(M), however, struck a discordant note. “We had opposed the appointment of Kalyan Singh as governor and I am happy that at least he was not sent here. But, it was the BJP which took a stand that party leaders would not be sent to Raj Bhavans. They are contradicting themselves,” said Suryakanta Mishra, the party’s politburo member and leader of the opposition in the state Assembly. Besides being a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, Tripathi has also been BJP’s UP state president.
