Will Goa Governor quit?
Congress appointed governors are facing the heat, as each one comes under pressure from the Union home secretary to quit. The delay by these governors by digging in their heels can only escalate political tensions within the Indian Federal structure and could sour Centre state relations.
M K Narayanan of West Bengal, Sheila Dikshit of Kerala, Margaret Alva of Rajasthan, Kamla Beniwal of Gujarat, B L Joshi of UP, K Sankaranarayanan of Maharashtra and Devendra Konwar of Tripura who have relinquished party offices recently, are all in the firing line.
Though reasons for removal of the above could be construed as political, with the change of regime, given that most critical decisions of government formation will hinge on the governor in the wake of impending state assembly elections, the case of the Goa Governor is different and even more serious. The reasons being the ongoing CBI probe into the Agusta Westland helicopter deal and the agency insisting that it wishes to question Goa Governor B V Wanchoo. The NDA government’s pressure on Goa Governor Wanchoo, who was director of SPG is all the more because he has been named several times in reports, and therefore the urge to serve an ultimatum to him to either quit or face removal by the President, as national media reports suggest.
Sheila Dikshit, K Sankaranarayanan, M K Narayanan and H R Bharadwaj have taken a constitutionally intractable position that they will go only if asked by the President, since governors enjoy office at the pleasure of the President.
Nagaland Governor Ashwani Kumar has shown signs of willing to quit but not before declaring that this is political vendetta and an attempt to fill in these position with people of a particular colour.
But, it is indeed regrettable that the UPA is now crying wolf when it had indulged in a similar exercise after coming to power in 2004, and got rid of BJP appointed governors in Uttar Pradesh (Vishnukant Shastri), Gujarat (Kailashpati Mishra), Haryana (Babu Parmananad) and even in Goa (Kedarnath Sahni).
The Supreme Court in 2010 had ruled that “governors were not employees of the Union government to warrant removal on the ground of loss of confidence in them.” But the judgment allows the cabinet to make a recommendation for removal of individual governors based on a report of their doings. Therefore this puts the position of Goa Governor being probed in the Augusta Westland deal, in jeopardy.
Though constitutionally the governors are appointed and stay in office for a term of five years at the pleasure of the President, in a Cabinet form of government, it is well known that the President’s pleasure is the pleasure of the Cabinet, which is the real executive.
Democracy operates not on legalistic interpretation of the Constitution, but on certain well established conventions around the functioning of the Parliamentary system of government as seen in United Kingdom, which works purely on conventions in the absence of a written constitution.
Therefore in the interest of Indian Democracy, and to retain the prestige of the office of Governor, the most sensible thing to do for the Congress appointees is to gracefully resign like the Chhattisgarh governor Shekhar Dutt. So the question arises, amid waning resistance will the rest quit at the behest of the now extinguished UPA high command as they have done all their political lives?
In the case of Goa, right from his address to the Assembly to the Goa Revolution Day speech, Goa Governor is going out of his way to pander to the BJP government, knowing the clout of the chief minister with the Centre. In fact, Wanchoo who is a representative of the Centre and a constitutional guardian, went out of his way to criticize the Centre on various issues in his address. This criticism does not augur well for Centre-State relations. His Goa Revolution Day speech ‘not to oppose the government on its development projects’ also would seem strange to many, since the right to protest is an inseparable part of democracy.
The moment the governor ceases to be a constitutional authority and works by compulsions, it may not be possible for him to uphold his constitutional duties. Hence, the question is, is it time for him to put in his papers?
