Kolkata, Dec 13 (IANS) Urging all political parties in West Bengal to shun violence, outgoing Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi Sunday said the state will suffer “irretrievable damage” if peace was not restored.
“Unless all inter-party, inter-cadre or inter-supporter violence is halted, West Bengal will suffer irretrievable damage. All political organisations must together bring West Bengal out of the debris of bhangchur (destruction), bandhs (shutdowns) and bomabaji (bombings),” Gandhi said in his farewell message to the people on his last day in office.

The governor, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, returns to Chennai Monday.

“No party should countenance the use of unauthorised arms. All provocations, in word and deed, across the political spectrum, should cease,” the message said.

Gandhi regretted that distrust between different political entities and personalities, as also within institutions such as the universities was “disfiguring life” in the State.

“We have to rectify this situation by changing our conditioned mind-sets. The state has known healthy political debates which sparkle but do not ignite. That tradition needs to be maintained,” he said in the message.

“The choice before West Bengal should not be between the wrong-doing of one and the counter wrong-doing of another. The choice should not be between the vengeance of one and the return vendetta of another. The choice has to be between chaos and civility, disorder and decorum,” read

the message.

Referring to the criticism heaped on him from some quarters during his five-year stint at the Raj Bhavan here, Gandhi said he bore no resentment.

“My experience of life would have been one-sided had my tenure not received the dart of criticism from personalities in our public life. I shall assume that I have deserved such criticism. But I would like to say that I bear no resentment whatsoever about it,” he said.

Gandhi suggested that the state’s political organisations view the Maoist crisis through non-political lenses and involve social welfare organisations and bona fide NGOs in ushering in development in the forest areas in the western districts.