On Trinamool MP's 'Guns Stockpile' Jab, Bengal Governor Orders Raj Bhavan Sweep

Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose led a team of Kolkata Police and central security forces Monday in searching the Raj Bhavan in the wake of allegations by Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee. He had claimed "criminals" from the Bharatiya Janata Party were being sheltered in the Governor's official residence and that arms and ammunition were being stockpiled inside.

Speaking to NDTV after the operation, which included bomb squads and sniffer dogs 'investigating' parts of Raj Bhavan, and yielded no contraband, he said, "Comments by MP Kalyan Banerjee are outrageous, malicious, obnoxious, and baseless. The tendency I notice among politicians in Bengal is to make wild allegations. They think no action will be taken."

"If what he (Banerjee) said had been right, then a course of action has to be taken. If it is wrong then another course has to be taken. To establish this before the public... I ordered an operation to be carried out by the state and central authorities. Nothing has been found."

"It is, therefore established that the MP was making false allegations..." Bose said, warning the Trinamool leader of "very strong action" to be taken against him.

Officials told news agency PTI Bose cut short a trip to the northern districts to be present for the search, which began from the ground floor of evacuated Raj Bhavan at 2.15 pm. Officials also confirmed deployment of personnel at the police outpost within the Raj Bhavan grounds.

Banerjee made his claim on Saturday, hours after Bose spoke about the contentious special intensive revision of electoral rolls - ordered in Bengal before next year's Assembly election.

Bose called the SIR 'essential to clean up the election process'.

The Governor's office has now filed a police complaint against Kalyan Banerjee, while also cautioning the cops that action will be taken in case of non-compliance with the order.

The Trinamool MP had claimed the Governor should first stop "giving shelter to criminals and distributing arms and ammunition to them... to kill Trinamool Congress workers", and raged, "As long as an incompetent Governor like you remains, as long as a BJP-servant Governor remains, you will never see anything good happening in West Bengal..."

The Trinamool and BJP are girding their loins for a high-voltage battle in next year's Assembly election, in which the latter will make another attempt to unseat the former from power.