Malik, it is known, had sought a transfer to a bigger State where he could play a bigger role. Meghalaya may not give him a larger role but given his antecedents, Malik will ensure that he does justice to the gubernatorial post he holds in the State to goes to. He came to Goa from Jammu amd Kashmir less than a year ago. Before that he had been occupying the Governor’s mansion in Bihar, and so Meghalaya becomes the fourth State where he will go as Governor, and he hasn’t yet completed five years since taking office yet.
Malik has been one of the few Governors that Goa has had who have taken an active interest in the affairs of the State. Whether it was the River Mhadei issue or the restart of mining operations in the State, Malik wrote to the Centre on these seeking the Union Government’s intervention in these issues that have been plaguing the State for years. He may not have succeeded in getting a solution from the Centre, but the efforts made indicated clearly that there was concern and that he could be the voice that Goa needed to reach out to New Delhi.
In his less than a year in the State Raj Bhavan, Malik has made himself quite popular with the people, especially as he took up issues that he felt were of importance, without weighing the consequences. If he felt it needed his intervention he went ahead and intervened. Earlier this year he had visited the Basilica of Bom Jesus after the Rector of the Church had written a letter on the repairs that were required before the monsoon. But he didn’t just stop there and some of his interventions had forced the government on the backfoot, especially in recent weeks as Malik had taken up a number of issues that are currently affecting the State that had even amounted to almost reversing decisions of the government.
For instance, soon after Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant had said that the government was planning on constructing a new Raj Bhavan the Governor had reacted quickly with a letter stating that he did not need a new premises for his work asking the government to defer the proposal until such time when there is an improvement in the State’s financial conditions. He had called the proposal ‘irrational and imprudent’ since it was made at a time when ‘the State is battling COVID-19 and reeling under a financial crisis’. This was not an isolated instance of the Governor countering the government but was on in a series that have taken place.
Take for instance also the government’s COVID-19 management. Here the Governor had made a series of suggestions, one among them being that persons with co-morbidities be treated at the COVID hospital for these other ailments along with the coronavirus treatment. It led to the government initiating the process for this and restructuring the entire COVID treatment protocol and set up with new teams formed to manage the pandemic.
Such has been the active role that Malik has been playing in Goa as Governor that the opposition of the State genuinely appears upset with the transfer and have called it a political move as he had taken a strong stand against the government’s ‘failed policies’. The government on the other hand, though it has not reacted to the transfer, would perhaps be glad that the Governor has been transferred. Having its decisions questions by the Head of the State was never a pleasing experience. Goa will miss Malik as in ten months he was here, he had brought much respectability to the office of the Governor.
