On Thursday, he spoke out against the move of the state government to remove Kolkata police commissioner Ranjit Kumar Pachnanda saying “there was something wrong in the decision that needs to be looked into”. On Friday, Governor MK Narayanan acted: he summoned top officials of the Mamata Banerjee regime to Raj Bhavan to figure out what was really happening at Garden Reach where political rivalry has already claimed the life of a policeman. Industry minister Partha Chatterjee was seen in the Raj Bhavan premises on Friday, but he denied having met the Governor.

Next walked in the directorgeneral of state police, Naparajit Mukherjee, followed by chief secretary Sanjay Mitra, all of whom were summoned by the Governor to Raj Bhavan. Both spent around an hour briefing Narayanan, himself a former top cop, about the Garden Reach incident.

During the day, the Trinamool Congress fielded senior party leader and MP Sultan Ahmed to launch an attack on the Governor for what he had said about Garden Reach the day before. “The Governor should act as a Governor and should not play the role of an IPS officer. Law and order is a state subject and the state government has all the right to transfer officers,” Ahmed, a former Union minister, said.

Trinamool sources said that chief minister Mamata Banerjee is unhappy with the remarks of the Governor. But this is not the first time that Narayanan has spoken out against the widespread political violence in Bengal, often hinting that the government was not doing its job impartially.

When former Left Front minister Rezzak Mollah was beaten up in Bhangar and Trinamool supporters later vandalized buses and party offices belonging to the CPI(M) in the area, the Governor had condemned the “culture of goondaism” in the state.