New Delhi : Former Kerala governor Sheila Dikshit wants that the laws relating to the appointments and tenures of governors should be amended. “If governors should go when a new government comes to power at the Centre, then there should be a law. Parliament should enact a law providing for resignation of governors when a new government takes office,” she has said.
Expressing an opinion that the governors must be treated with respect, Dikshit hit out at the NDA government for targeting the governors appointed by the UPA regime.” It is a very dignified and constitutional position. They targeted the governors selectively. It was humiliation of the holders of the constitutional office which is not good for democracy,” said the former Delhi chief minister who had been asked by a senior bureaucrat to resign. The veteran Congress leader maintained that she was not worried about herself but concerned at the prestige of the high constitutional office.
Eight governors appointed by the UPA have resigned after the Modi government took over, one of the governors Kamla Beniwal was moved from Gujarat to Mizoram and then sacked. The governor of Uttarakhand Aziz Qureshi has already moved the Supreme Court on this issue and his petition is pending before a constitution bench.
Removing governors appointed by a previous dispensation has been a political tradition, but then in 2010 the Supreme Court had ruled that this cannot be done without reasons. But the NDA government overlooked that went ahead with its efforts to get the Raj Bhawan residents to quit.
Anil Sharma
