Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Governors and the Congress regime

One area where the present congress government in India has really bungled is the appointment of Governors and ensuring that they behave properly. Ever since it came to power, this government has thrown to wind all norms of political decency at Raj Bhavans. To begin with scores of Governors (if not all) appointed by the previous NDA government were unceremoniously ousted either in the name of 'de-saffronisation' or for no reason at all. Even a politically neutral governor like Rama Mohan Rao of Tamilnadu was shown the door for a ridiculous reason. The reason was that he didn't host a tea party on the eve of Republic Day! What they didn't say was that they themselves (home ministry) and the Rashrtapati Bhavan had cleared his visit abroad during that time. Though I do not question the appointment of politicians of the ruling party as governors (even the previous govts have done that), it should be reasonable. This government even appoints Chief Ministers who have just been back from elections as Governors. (Ex. Sushil Kumar Shinde, S M Krishna and N C Jamir). Who will believe they are going to behave impartially in their new constitutional position ? The situation has become worse in recent weeks. In Goa, N C Jamir has behaved more like a Congress coolie than as a Governor. I admit that Goa BJP did its part of the foul game with the help of the speaker. But how can one justify the haste with which Jamir dismissed Manohar Parrikar of the BJP and installed Pratap Sinh Rane of the congress. Y'day Jharkand Governor Syed Sibtey Razi refused to acknowledge the claim by BJP leader Arjun Munda of having the support of 41 MLAs needed to form the government. This despite the fact that all the 41 MLA's were paraded before him, BJP is the single largest party and NDA is the largest pre-poll alliance. What else is needed to invite the BJP to form the govt? Given that Arjun Munda seems to have the numbers, the governor may only be able to delay but not prevent the installation of a BJP govt there. But don't you get the picture?

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