Political vendetta
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: August 26, 2014 -

In yet another instance of its political vendetta against the Governors appointed by the previous Congress-led UPA Government, the BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre announced its decision to transfer K Sankaranarayanan, the Governor of Maharashtra, to Mizoram in the wee hours of Sunday for the remainder of his term which ends in 2017.

82-year old Sankaranarayanan was among a dozen Governors appointed by the UPA Government including B L Joshi (Uttar Pradesh), M K Narayanan (West Bengal), Shekhar Dutt (Chhattisgarh), Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland) and B V Wanchoo (Goa), who were either asked or nudged to resign from their respective posts by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government earlier, but he had dug in his heels and refused to do so, maintaining that he would resign only if asked by ‘appropriate authorities’, meaning the President of India who appoints the Governors.

However, stunned by the communiqué issued well past Saturday midnight by the Rashtrapati Bhavan announcing his transfer to Mizoram and appointment of Gujarat Governor Om Prakash Kohli in his place; Sankaranarayanan, who, of course, had earlier threatened to put in his resignation if transferred anywhere, stating that he would never wish to be a Governor bearing the "disgrace of being transferred", resigned from the post, thus, putting an abrupt end to the high drama of political vendetta that the NDA Government has been hatching all along.

As we must have stated through this column earlier, legally speaking, any Government at the Centre has the power to transfer any Governor to any part of the country and technically speaking, there is no difference in the office of the Governor anywhere as it is a constitutional post with the same authority, dignity and pay package and perks.

But what is really questionable here is the mindset of the Government at Centre which always thinks Northeast region as a place for what the mainstream media describes as ‘punishment posting’ of Governors that it finds difficult to deal with or out of favour.

At the same time, this notion of Northeast as some hinterland where defiant Governors should be sent on ‘punishment posting’ has been reaffirmed time and again by the Governors themselves by showing aversion towards being posted in any of the Northeast States.

In the present case too, Sankaranarayanan has emphatically stated that it was impossible for him to go to Mizoram. Of course, he had said something about never wishing to be a Governor bearing the ‘disgrace of being transferred’.

But we should not forget the fact that he is someone who has steadfastly refused to heed to the nudging of the Narendra Modi Government to resign from his post all along while maintaining that he would only listen to the President of India, who appoints him to the post.

Interestingly, the political vendetta of the Narendra Modi Government against such a defiant UPA-Government appointed Governor has been achieved so effortlessly at the very word of posting to Mizoram. So sad.