MINIMUM GOVERNMENT, MAXIMUM GOVERNOR

The saga of state govts vs Governors takes new twists with Supreme Court's intervention

- ARCHIS MOHAN

In July 2014, less than two months after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government took charge at the Centre, several Governors appointed by the preceding United Progressive Alliance government quit their perches. Some others held on for a few weeks more, but gave in.

One, Gujarat Governor Kamla Beniwal, was moved to Mizoram. A month later, four months before her tenure was to end, Beniwal was relieved of her position, ostensibly for misusing the exchequer's money to travel to Jaipur during her Gandhinagar tenure. Although this was in compliance with the Sarkaria Commission's recommendation and a Supreme Court order of 2010 that 

Governors should not be sacked before completing their five-year tenure unless there are "rare and compelling" reasons, there was a subtext to the episode.

As the Gujarat Governor, Beniwal had several run-ins with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state. She delayed her assent to Bills that the state Assembly had passed, including one that provided for 50 per cent reservation for women in local bodies. She also had disagreements over appointments of university vice-chancellors and the Lokayukta.

Gujarat's chief minister at that time, Narendra Modi, addressing a public meeting in Porbandar on the Mahatma's birth anniversary in 2011, demanded that the Centre "recall" Beniwal. "The present Governor is a woman, and yet she is opposed to women getting the benefit of reservation of seats," he said.

Cut to July 2023 and go south-east from Gujarat to Tamil Nadu. In a 15-page letter to President Droupadi Murmu, TN Chief Minister MK Stalin said Governor RNRavi was unfit to occupy the post as he "unnecessarily delays" approving Bills passed in the Assembly and "acts like an enemy to the people-elected state government's policies and ideology".