FOCUS
ARE GOVERNORS SUPERFLUOUS IN INDIA?
Frankly, kind of governors this country is saddled with, they are indeed not needed.
But who are these governors anyway?
It was the Crown of England, centuries ago, started the use of this word, ascribed to an official appointed by the Crown to manage a geographical area, more specifically called ‘a province’. This governor enjoyed enormous power and stature, along with immense prestige, perks and privileges. Free India borrowed this concept from the Government of India Act of 1935, enacted by the British Parliament. Article 155 of the Constitution lays down that ‘The governor of a state shall be appointed by the president by warrant under his hand and seal’. Article 156 provides ‘The governor shall hold office during the pleasure of the president”. But the practice has been that both appointment and dismissal of governor is based on the recommendation of the federal government at New Delhi and term is usually kept at 5 years, and normally the person, so appointed, is not from the same state. Under the Indian constitution governor has both Legislative as well as Executive Powers. Power to call the meeting of the assembly, adjournment of the assembly and the dissolution of the assembly are among the most important powers that a governor enjoys. However the power to dissolve the assembly is the most potent one.
As a representative of the central government, he is, what President of India is to the Union of India, a de jure head of the state. As head of the state, he has to represent the people of the state in their fight to get their due from the federal government rather than vice versa, within the overall national context. The Constitution empowers him to actively interface with the state government to be consulted, to caution and to encourage. His role is that of a ‘friend, philosopher and guide’ to his Council of Ministers with array of discretionary powers.
Of course these are all ideal situations. In reality he is the ear and eye of the central government. And the trouble arises when the federal government is ruled by one party and the state has a government of an opposition party. On many instances, central governments have recommended the recall or dismissal of governor, they are not comfortable with. Although the constitution envisage the appointment of governors by the President and makers of the constitution wanted the governor to be above partisan politics, in practice, especially during and after the Indira Gandhi era, it has always been to reward an old party war-horse or to rehabilitate a retired babu who has been a partner in the past with their political masters in their wheelings and dealings.
The ruling dispensation at the centre, more often than not, used the office of governor as a kind of patronage. It was also the best way to either reward a friend or send a troublesome party leader into political oblivion. Example of Vasant Dada Patil who was the Maharashtra Chief Minister and SM Krishna, the then Karnataka CM, who is at present MEA at centre, are the ones who were banished to Rajasthan and Maharashtra respectively, as governors.
Governors playing politics or appointed to play politics was started during the reign of Indira Gandhi and continued through Rajeev Gandhi to the current outfit at the centre, the UPA, headed by the Congress. So its been always Congress who played dirty forcing Governors to play dirty.
History of governors playing partisan politics in the state under their rule is fairly long. It has reportedly a history of some 53 years of 63 years of India as a free nation.
Over the years, the Raj Bhavans all over the country had become rehabilitation centres of senile political heavy weights of the ruling party at the centre, a kind of ‘Old-Age Homes’. Most of these persons were octogenarians with fragile health, but still looking for easy life of comforts and power without responsibility. The six decades that India has traversed on the Westminster model of political governance, it is fairly well documented, how it has been a hand maiden in the hands of ruling politicians of the day. From Thakur Ram Lal to Sardar Buta Singh, to the latest in this line of trouble making governors, Hans Raj Bhardwaj, all of them are members of Congress party.
Although there are quite a few others who did not act creditably from Raj Bhavan, with some of the state governments ruled by opposition parties, three of them stand out for their acts of brazenness.
Thakur Ramlal, who was an MLA from Himachal Pradesh, elected continuously six times, and was Chief Minister twice, was sent to Andhra Pradesh, where N.T. Rama Rao had become a kind of nemesis of Congress party. N.T. Rama Rao’s Telugu Desam Party had won 203 of the 294 seats in Andhra Assembly, against the 56 seats won by Congress Party, in the Dec. 1983 election. Congress had lost power in Andhra for the first time.
Having started the political party less than a year ago it was a stupendous show for the showman NTR (as N T Rama Rao was known). He had truly humbled the Indian National Congress of which Indira Gandhi was the President as well, besides being the Prime Minister of the country. And Indira Gandhi, the then Indian Prime Minister couldn’t digest the idea of sitting in the opposition. So she sends a professional politician as Governor with ‘instructions’ to see how things can be reversed.
On 15th Aug. 1984, exactly one year after Ramlal came to Hyderabad as Governor, he dismissed the Telugu Desam government, when NTR, the Chief Minister, was on a foreign trip. Ramlal installed a former Congressman, Nadendla Bhaskar Rao as the Chief Minister stating that he had the support of majority, which was not true. This move had the blessings of Indira Gandhi.
On his return NTR mobilised all his supporters and paraded them at Raj Bhavan. An unmoved Ramlal rejected his claim. There was widespread condemnation across the country. Most opposition political parties supported NTR in his fight for restoration of his democratically elected government. In the crisis that remained for almost a month, Indira Gandhi was forced to remove the Governor Ramlal and Shankar Dayal Sharma, who was to become the President of India in later years, was sent to Hyderabad as new Governor, who restored NTR as the Chief Minister in Sept. 1984.
Like Ramlal, so was Sardar Buta Singh. He was sent by the centre to Bihar to try and install the government of its choice, and see that it survives without any hiccups. Unfortunately the figures at the hustings did not add up to the required equation. However, since Governor Buta Singh did not want the opposition to have a fair chance to form the government, using his legislative powers he dissolved the assembly, leaving the opposition NDA in lurch. Thus the Governor Buta Singh not only went against the constitutional propriety but also imposed on an impoverished state, a huge expenditure of crores of rupees for another, completely avoidable, election on the state. Of course as the luck would have it, NDA romped home with a comfortable majority on its own. Both Congress and the Governor were disgraced.
Of course it is indeed very fortuitous that Nitish Kumar got an opportunity to preside over the destiny of Bihar with dedication and commitment and proved a complete nemesis to his beite noire Lalu Yadav and his RJD in the election that followed in 2010.
Besides Bihar, around the same time, there were other 2 attempts by Raj Bhavan, in Goa and Jharkhand, to blatantly interfere with the constitutional provisions and to promote the interest of ruling combine at the center. Like Bihar, even Jharkhand escaped from the viciousness of the gubernatorial excesses and the opposition managed to have its government, despite the centre’s wishes to the contrary.
Here it is important to recount the Supreme Court intervention in the Bihar imbroglio. According to PTI "The apex court has held that Bihar governor Buta Singh’s decision to recommend dissolution of the state assembly under the garb of checking defection was obviously perverse and taken in bad faith,” observed a five judge constitution bench, in a majority verdict. “On facts, the inescapable inference is that the sole object of the governor was to prevent the claim being made to form government and the case would fall under category of bad faith” said the judgement.
Rebutting the contention of the centre that the governor was in the know of the state of affairs in the state which was ‘destroying the very fabric of democracy’, the judgement observed that, “it had not reached that stage and the governors report was intended to forestall any voting and staking of claim to form the government”. The judgement further held that, “There was no material, let alone relevant, with the government, to assume that there was blatant distortion of democracy by induced defection through unethical and unconstitutional means”.
It was a damning indictment of the governor, and exposed the culpability of the central government. The very fact, that it met at midnight to discuss the issue and woke up the President in a foreign country to sign the ordinance to impose President’s Rule smacks of its being more than a willing partner in this rape of democracy.
Looking to the case of former law minister of UPA-I, Mr. Hans Raj Bhardwaj, it is unparalleled in many ways. He was appointed governor of Karnataka on 24th June 2009, replacing Rameshwar Thakur, a Chartered Accountant Congressman. Thakur was transferred despite his term not having been completed. So was there a plan in place in sending Bhardwaj, a lawyer by profession, to the only BJP ruled state in the south? Or at least, an appearance of an agenda is not misplaced. We at ISSUES & CONCERNS have written about his misadventures or his acts of commission or omission, at least, on 9 occasions during his less than two years time in Raj Bhavan in Bangalore.
There was this report in the print media, “with governor’s nod, failed BDS student gets another chance”. It was about a student who had failed, but had an IPS officer for a father, with close intelligence proximity to the Governor. Despite being a lawyer, former Union Law Minister, Bhardwaj as Governor of Karnataka did not blink, before asking the university (RGUHS) to constitute a committee and look into it and report back in a week’s time to re-examine the student. It is another matter that former V.Cs were aghast at this unprecedented gubernatorial intervention. And come to think of it, it was the same governor who had earlier in the month admonished the state government on law and order and other issues. Admonishes, advises and other irritating interventions, the governor Bhardwaj continued and it culminated with Bhardwaj writing to Election Commission to disqualify Reddy brothers, who are ministers in Karnataka government, ostensibly for holding office of profit, in other words, their business interests. Based on a complaint by a Congress MLC, alleging misuse of office by Reddy brothers in furthering their business interest, Governor issued a notice to Reddy brothers, and since they did not respond, wrote to EC to disqualify them. Now, as a Governor, ‘a friend, philosopher and guide’ that he is, could have called up the Chief Minister for a report and then act accordingly. But the Congressman in him, and the lawyer in him, probably prompted him to ‘act’.
Then there is this tasteless and arrogant dressing down Bhardwaj gave to the Vice Chancellor of Mysore University in public. There was widespread condemnation of it in the media and in public space, which described the Governor’s action ‘most uncivilized and autocratic’.
Because of his incessant and no-holds barred missives and irritating interventions he has been described in a section of the media that ‘Bhardwaj is probably the noisiest governor any state in India had’. Some time in September 2010, he returned a bill sent to him for ratification, which was probably anybody anywhere wouldn’t have returned unsigned. The Akrama/Sakrama bill, which is the bill to regularise illegal construction or occupation of government land over a long period of time against some hefty fine and other charges is a normal legislative process any where in India, and all political dispensations, present and past, have done this, rightly or wrongly. Here we have governors like Bhardwaj fishing in troubled waters.
Fortunately for all the agenda of governor Bhardwaj, the B. S. Yediyurappa government in Karnataka, is not an iconic model government, practicing positive principles of governance. It is to the credit of BSY, that he presides over a corrupt government, where he is having a running battle with the state Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde. Media is full of stories of scams involving him and his family members, besides some of his cabinet colleagues. With occasional bouts of blowing hot and cold, Governor Bhardwaj has honed his skill of pricking BSY & Co. over a period. He had gone quite after that ‘Confidence Vote’ fiasco, but got the opportunity to ‘rehab’ himself as the ‘custodian of ethics’ in Bangalore after the land scam involving Yediyurappa & his family members, besides some ministers. Of course, the family of former PM, HD Deve Gowda, had gone on overdrive with their complaint to Lokayukta, and issues were already under investigation, hence there was no role for the governor. But the itch to prick the CM, BSY, governor couldn’t resist. Governor Bhardwaj grants permission to prosecute the Chief Minister. So now its no holds barred. Of course, the mutual accusations between ruling party and opposition is a normal ongoing drama in all states all over India. And Governor could play a more responsible role to have a performing and accountable government without raising hackles. But as was evident, he opted for a course of open confrontation, all along his term of less than two years. The latest being the recommendation of the Governor to impose President’s rule in Karnataka, in the wake of Supreme Court judgement on 16 MLAs of Karnataka assembly reversing their disqualification back in Dec. 2010, by the Karnataka Speaker, and later upheld by Karnataka High Court. Of course whether the judgement is right or not is not the concern of the Governor. But he took a unilateral decision that on the last date of confidence vote in Dec. 2010, the BJP didn’t have the majority since these 16 MLAs were qualified to vote and that they had withdrawn their support. Now this was an interpretation nobody asked for, and although the centre would have wanted to act on the recommendation, they didn’t, knowing fully well the explosive possibilities. No wonder the news papers gave a call “Bhardwaj has to go”. One news paper even called him ‘serial offender’ and hence ‘should be recalled’.
Here it is very pertinent to reproduce what The Hindu editorial said, quote “Unabashedly partisan in his motives and actions, Karnataka Governor H.R. Bhardwaj has been for a long time now, a disgrace to the constitutional office he holds. At every available opportunity, he has been abusing the authority of his office to unseat the BJP government of B.S. Yediyurappa” unquote.
The foregone pages have amply demonstrated how the Governor, who is a, “friend, philosopher & guide” has become “foe, selfish and a misguide”, when it came to opposition ruled states. Yes, he was only promoting the interest of his party bosses in New Delhi, and not the President of the Indian Union, who is truly the constitutional head.
Here, we need to ‘appreciate’ the predicament of the ruling party in the centre. Every time when ministry is formed at the centre, there are many aspirants to the ministerial position, but cannot be accommodated, due to co-alition equations. Compulsions of co-alition dynamics forces the hand of the ruling party to yield to the demands of co-alition partners. For this, choices are nil or limited. This leaves many disgruntled elements in the ruling party who need to be accommodated. Some of them end up as state governors, and some would even leave party. Buta Singh is one such. He left Congress for BJP and then again returned to Congress. And since he had some scores to settle with BJP, he was thus sent to Bihar to unsettle Bihar arithmetic. In the event, everything went in favour of opposition, is another matter.
Having discussed the misuse of the constitutional office of governor by the ruling clique at the centre, what is needed to be discussed is the relevance or otherwise of this gubernatorial office.
In a parliamentary democracy, like the President at the centre, Governor in the state is only a constitutional head. Occasionally he is called upon to discharge some of his duties, which are few and far between. He generally acts on cabinet recommendations or the council of ministers. So also for whatever reasons, when Governor is not available or his position remains vacant, the Chief Justice of the state acts as Governor, in case of need. Thus, in terms of involvement in the Governance, it is so few, his absence is never felt. Thus the question, is, in a country like India, ‘ISNT GOVERNOR’S POSITION SUPERFLUOUS?
India has 29 states plus union territories. Can you imagine the recurring expenditure besides the capital expenditure, on this Raj Bhavan and its occupants and the attendant paraphernalia, month after month, year after year, for all these 61 years as Sovereign Republic. It can surely be thousands of crores of rupees. Can’t this money be put to better use than wasting it on men and women in their seventies and eighties, not in their pink of health, only to enjoy in comfort, the state largesse, in a Royal Old-Age Homes called Raj Bhavan, especially when Chief Justices of High Courts can double up, when needed, at no extra cost?
J.Shriyan
Frankly, kind of governors this country is saddled with, they are indeed not needed.
But who are these governors anyway?
It was the Crown of England, centuries ago, started the use of this word, ascribed to an official appointed by the Crown to manage a geographical area, more specifically called ‘a province’. This governor enjoyed enormous power and stature, along with immense prestige, perks and privileges. Free India borrowed this concept from the Government of India Act of 1935, enacted by the British Parliament. Article 155 of the Constitution lays down that ‘The governor of a state shall be appointed by the president by warrant under his hand and seal’. Article 156 provides ‘The governor shall hold office during the pleasure of the president”. But the practice has been that both appointment and dismissal of governor is based on the recommendation of the federal government at New Delhi and term is usually kept at 5 years, and normally the person, so appointed, is not from the same state. Under the Indian constitution governor has both Legislative as well as Executive Powers. Power to call the meeting of the assembly, adjournment of the assembly and the dissolution of the assembly are among the most important powers that a governor enjoys. However the power to dissolve the assembly is the most potent one.
As a representative of the central government, he is, what President of India is to the Union of India, a de jure head of the state. As head of the state, he has to represent the people of the state in their fight to get their due from the federal government rather than vice versa, within the overall national context. The Constitution empowers him to actively interface with the state government to be consulted, to caution and to encourage. His role is that of a ‘friend, philosopher and guide’ to his Council of Ministers with array of discretionary powers.
Of course these are all ideal situations. In reality he is the ear and eye of the central government. And the trouble arises when the federal government is ruled by one party and the state has a government of an opposition party. On many instances, central governments have recommended the recall or dismissal of governor, they are not comfortable with. Although the constitution envisage the appointment of governors by the President and makers of the constitution wanted the governor to be above partisan politics, in practice, especially during and after the Indira Gandhi era, it has always been to reward an old party war-horse or to rehabilitate a retired babu who has been a partner in the past with their political masters in their wheelings and dealings.
The ruling dispensation at the centre, more often than not, used the office of governor as a kind of patronage. It was also the best way to either reward a friend or send a troublesome party leader into political oblivion. Example of Vasant Dada Patil who was the Maharashtra Chief Minister and SM Krishna, the then Karnataka CM, who is at present MEA at centre, are the ones who were banished to Rajasthan and Maharashtra respectively, as governors.
Governors playing politics or appointed to play politics was started during the reign of Indira Gandhi and continued through Rajeev Gandhi to the current outfit at the centre, the UPA, headed by the Congress. So its been always Congress who played dirty forcing Governors to play dirty.
History of governors playing partisan politics in the state under their rule is fairly long. It has reportedly a history of some 53 years of 63 years of India as a free nation.
Over the years, the Raj Bhavans all over the country had become rehabilitation centres of senile political heavy weights of the ruling party at the centre, a kind of ‘Old-Age Homes’. Most of these persons were octogenarians with fragile health, but still looking for easy life of comforts and power without responsibility. The six decades that India has traversed on the Westminster model of political governance, it is fairly well documented, how it has been a hand maiden in the hands of ruling politicians of the day. From Thakur Ram Lal to Sardar Buta Singh, to the latest in this line of trouble making governors, Hans Raj Bhardwaj, all of them are members of Congress party.
Although there are quite a few others who did not act creditably from Raj Bhavan, with some of the state governments ruled by opposition parties, three of them stand out for their acts of brazenness.
Thakur Ramlal, who was an MLA from Himachal Pradesh, elected continuously six times, and was Chief Minister twice, was sent to Andhra Pradesh, where N.T. Rama Rao had become a kind of nemesis of Congress party. N.T. Rama Rao’s Telugu Desam Party had won 203 of the 294 seats in Andhra Assembly, against the 56 seats won by Congress Party, in the Dec. 1983 election. Congress had lost power in Andhra for the first time.
Having started the political party less than a year ago it was a stupendous show for the showman NTR (as N T Rama Rao was known). He had truly humbled the Indian National Congress of which Indira Gandhi was the President as well, besides being the Prime Minister of the country. And Indira Gandhi, the then Indian Prime Minister couldn’t digest the idea of sitting in the opposition. So she sends a professional politician as Governor with ‘instructions’ to see how things can be reversed.
On 15th Aug. 1984, exactly one year after Ramlal came to Hyderabad as Governor, he dismissed the Telugu Desam government, when NTR, the Chief Minister, was on a foreign trip. Ramlal installed a former Congressman, Nadendla Bhaskar Rao as the Chief Minister stating that he had the support of majority, which was not true. This move had the blessings of Indira Gandhi.
On his return NTR mobilised all his supporters and paraded them at Raj Bhavan. An unmoved Ramlal rejected his claim. There was widespread condemnation across the country. Most opposition political parties supported NTR in his fight for restoration of his democratically elected government. In the crisis that remained for almost a month, Indira Gandhi was forced to remove the Governor Ramlal and Shankar Dayal Sharma, who was to become the President of India in later years, was sent to Hyderabad as new Governor, who restored NTR as the Chief Minister in Sept. 1984.
Like Ramlal, so was Sardar Buta Singh. He was sent by the centre to Bihar to try and install the government of its choice, and see that it survives without any hiccups. Unfortunately the figures at the hustings did not add up to the required equation. However, since Governor Buta Singh did not want the opposition to have a fair chance to form the government, using his legislative powers he dissolved the assembly, leaving the opposition NDA in lurch. Thus the Governor Buta Singh not only went against the constitutional propriety but also imposed on an impoverished state, a huge expenditure of crores of rupees for another, completely avoidable, election on the state. Of course as the luck would have it, NDA romped home with a comfortable majority on its own. Both Congress and the Governor were disgraced.
Of course it is indeed very fortuitous that Nitish Kumar got an opportunity to preside over the destiny of Bihar with dedication and commitment and proved a complete nemesis to his beite noire Lalu Yadav and his RJD in the election that followed in 2010.
Besides Bihar, around the same time, there were other 2 attempts by Raj Bhavan, in Goa and Jharkhand, to blatantly interfere with the constitutional provisions and to promote the interest of ruling combine at the center. Like Bihar, even Jharkhand escaped from the viciousness of the gubernatorial excesses and the opposition managed to have its government, despite the centre’s wishes to the contrary.
Here it is important to recount the Supreme Court intervention in the Bihar imbroglio. According to PTI "The apex court has held that Bihar governor Buta Singh’s decision to recommend dissolution of the state assembly under the garb of checking defection was obviously perverse and taken in bad faith,” observed a five judge constitution bench, in a majority verdict. “On facts, the inescapable inference is that the sole object of the governor was to prevent the claim being made to form government and the case would fall under category of bad faith” said the judgement.
Rebutting the contention of the centre that the governor was in the know of the state of affairs in the state which was ‘destroying the very fabric of democracy’, the judgement observed that, “it had not reached that stage and the governors report was intended to forestall any voting and staking of claim to form the government”. The judgement further held that, “There was no material, let alone relevant, with the government, to assume that there was blatant distortion of democracy by induced defection through unethical and unconstitutional means”.
It was a damning indictment of the governor, and exposed the culpability of the central government. The very fact, that it met at midnight to discuss the issue and woke up the President in a foreign country to sign the ordinance to impose President’s Rule smacks of its being more than a willing partner in this rape of democracy.
Looking to the case of former law minister of UPA-I, Mr. Hans Raj Bhardwaj, it is unparalleled in many ways. He was appointed governor of Karnataka on 24th June 2009, replacing Rameshwar Thakur, a Chartered Accountant Congressman. Thakur was transferred despite his term not having been completed. So was there a plan in place in sending Bhardwaj, a lawyer by profession, to the only BJP ruled state in the south? Or at least, an appearance of an agenda is not misplaced. We at ISSUES & CONCERNS have written about his misadventures or his acts of commission or omission, at least, on 9 occasions during his less than two years time in Raj Bhavan in Bangalore.
There was this report in the print media, “with governor’s nod, failed BDS student gets another chance”. It was about a student who had failed, but had an IPS officer for a father, with close intelligence proximity to the Governor. Despite being a lawyer, former Union Law Minister, Bhardwaj as Governor of Karnataka did not blink, before asking the university (RGUHS) to constitute a committee and look into it and report back in a week’s time to re-examine the student. It is another matter that former V.Cs were aghast at this unprecedented gubernatorial intervention. And come to think of it, it was the same governor who had earlier in the month admonished the state government on law and order and other issues. Admonishes, advises and other irritating interventions, the governor Bhardwaj continued and it culminated with Bhardwaj writing to Election Commission to disqualify Reddy brothers, who are ministers in Karnataka government, ostensibly for holding office of profit, in other words, their business interests. Based on a complaint by a Congress MLC, alleging misuse of office by Reddy brothers in furthering their business interest, Governor issued a notice to Reddy brothers, and since they did not respond, wrote to EC to disqualify them. Now, as a Governor, ‘a friend, philosopher and guide’ that he is, could have called up the Chief Minister for a report and then act accordingly. But the Congressman in him, and the lawyer in him, probably prompted him to ‘act’.
Then there is this tasteless and arrogant dressing down Bhardwaj gave to the Vice Chancellor of Mysore University in public. There was widespread condemnation of it in the media and in public space, which described the Governor’s action ‘most uncivilized and autocratic’.
Because of his incessant and no-holds barred missives and irritating interventions he has been described in a section of the media that ‘Bhardwaj is probably the noisiest governor any state in India had’. Some time in September 2010, he returned a bill sent to him for ratification, which was probably anybody anywhere wouldn’t have returned unsigned. The Akrama/Sakrama bill, which is the bill to regularise illegal construction or occupation of government land over a long period of time against some hefty fine and other charges is a normal legislative process any where in India, and all political dispensations, present and past, have done this, rightly or wrongly. Here we have governors like Bhardwaj fishing in troubled waters.
Fortunately for all the agenda of governor Bhardwaj, the B. S. Yediyurappa government in Karnataka, is not an iconic model government, practicing positive principles of governance. It is to the credit of BSY, that he presides over a corrupt government, where he is having a running battle with the state Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde. Media is full of stories of scams involving him and his family members, besides some of his cabinet colleagues. With occasional bouts of blowing hot and cold, Governor Bhardwaj has honed his skill of pricking BSY & Co. over a period. He had gone quite after that ‘Confidence Vote’ fiasco, but got the opportunity to ‘rehab’ himself as the ‘custodian of ethics’ in Bangalore after the land scam involving Yediyurappa & his family members, besides some ministers. Of course, the family of former PM, HD Deve Gowda, had gone on overdrive with their complaint to Lokayukta, and issues were already under investigation, hence there was no role for the governor. But the itch to prick the CM, BSY, governor couldn’t resist. Governor Bhardwaj grants permission to prosecute the Chief Minister. So now its no holds barred. Of course, the mutual accusations between ruling party and opposition is a normal ongoing drama in all states all over India. And Governor could play a more responsible role to have a performing and accountable government without raising hackles. But as was evident, he opted for a course of open confrontation, all along his term of less than two years. The latest being the recommendation of the Governor to impose President’s rule in Karnataka, in the wake of Supreme Court judgement on 16 MLAs of Karnataka assembly reversing their disqualification back in Dec. 2010, by the Karnataka Speaker, and later upheld by Karnataka High Court. Of course whether the judgement is right or not is not the concern of the Governor. But he took a unilateral decision that on the last date of confidence vote in Dec. 2010, the BJP didn’t have the majority since these 16 MLAs were qualified to vote and that they had withdrawn their support. Now this was an interpretation nobody asked for, and although the centre would have wanted to act on the recommendation, they didn’t, knowing fully well the explosive possibilities. No wonder the news papers gave a call “Bhardwaj has to go”. One news paper even called him ‘serial offender’ and hence ‘should be recalled’.
Here it is very pertinent to reproduce what The Hindu editorial said, quote “Unabashedly partisan in his motives and actions, Karnataka Governor H.R. Bhardwaj has been for a long time now, a disgrace to the constitutional office he holds. At every available opportunity, he has been abusing the authority of his office to unseat the BJP government of B.S. Yediyurappa” unquote.
The foregone pages have amply demonstrated how the Governor, who is a, “friend, philosopher & guide” has become “foe, selfish and a misguide”, when it came to opposition ruled states. Yes, he was only promoting the interest of his party bosses in New Delhi, and not the President of the Indian Union, who is truly the constitutional head.
Here, we need to ‘appreciate’ the predicament of the ruling party in the centre. Every time when ministry is formed at the centre, there are many aspirants to the ministerial position, but cannot be accommodated, due to co-alition equations. Compulsions of co-alition dynamics forces the hand of the ruling party to yield to the demands of co-alition partners. For this, choices are nil or limited. This leaves many disgruntled elements in the ruling party who need to be accommodated. Some of them end up as state governors, and some would even leave party. Buta Singh is one such. He left Congress for BJP and then again returned to Congress. And since he had some scores to settle with BJP, he was thus sent to Bihar to unsettle Bihar arithmetic. In the event, everything went in favour of opposition, is another matter.
Having discussed the misuse of the constitutional office of governor by the ruling clique at the centre, what is needed to be discussed is the relevance or otherwise of this gubernatorial office.
In a parliamentary democracy, like the President at the centre, Governor in the state is only a constitutional head. Occasionally he is called upon to discharge some of his duties, which are few and far between. He generally acts on cabinet recommendations or the council of ministers. So also for whatever reasons, when Governor is not available or his position remains vacant, the Chief Justice of the state acts as Governor, in case of need. Thus, in terms of involvement in the Governance, it is so few, his absence is never felt. Thus the question, is, in a country like India, ‘ISNT GOVERNOR’S POSITION SUPERFLUOUS?
India has 29 states plus union territories. Can you imagine the recurring expenditure besides the capital expenditure, on this Raj Bhavan and its occupants and the attendant paraphernalia, month after month, year after year, for all these 61 years as Sovereign Republic. It can surely be thousands of crores of rupees. Can’t this money be put to better use than wasting it on men and women in their seventies and eighties, not in their pink of health, only to enjoy in comfort, the state largesse, in a Royal Old-Age Homes called Raj Bhavan, especially when Chief Justices of High Courts can double up, when needed, at no extra cost?
J.Shriyan
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