Governor appointments: Ex-bureaucrats, cops likely to be Centre’s picks

NEW DELHI: In the impending gubernatorial appointments, likely to take place after polls in Delhi, the government is likely to give former bureaucrats and retired policemen a fare share of Raj Bhavans along with "past their prime" politicians.
As many as seven Raj Bhavans are lying vacant and the government has indicated that appointments would be done after the February 7 Delhi polls.“This time some former bureaucrats and retired policemen are also being considered,” said a government source privy to the discussions.
Last year, the Narendra Modi government appointed 11 governors and all except one were BJP politicians. Only the Kerala Raj Bhavan went to former Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam. Governors of all other ten states appointed by the Modi government were BJP veterans such as Ram Naik, Kesri Nath Tripathi, Om Prakash Kohli, Balramji Dass Tandon, Vidyasagar Rao, Kalyan Singh, Padmanabha Acharya, Kaptan Singh Solanki, Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala and Mridula Sinha.
The new governors are likely to be appointed in Bihar, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura.
Rajasthan governor Kalyan Singh on Wednesday took additional charge of Himachal Pradesh. West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi is already holding additional charge of Bihar and Meghalaya, while Nagaland governor PB Acharya holds additional charge of Assam and Tripura. Also, Uttarakhand governor KK Paul is holding additional charge of Manipur.
Tamil Nadu governor K Rosaiah and his Odisha counterpart SC Jamir both retire in the next few months and are among the few governors who were appointed by the previous UPA government and continue to hold office after the NDA dispensation came to power. Aziz Qureshi, who had moved Supreme Court objecting to Union home secretary’s nudging governors to quit office, was shifted to Mizoram Raj Bhavan from Uttarakhand early this month.
Union home secretary Anil Goswami had called governors who were appointed by the previous government and told them that the new dispensation wanted them to relinquish office soon after Modi government took charge.
UPA-appointed Governors Sheila Dikshit (Kerala), MK Narayanan (West Bengal), Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland), BL Joshi (UP), BV Wanchoo (Goa), Shekhar Dutt (Chhattisgarh) and VK Duggal (Manipur) subsequently resigned.
Mizoram governor V Purushothaman resigned after he was transferred to Nagaland, while Maharashtra governor K Sankaranarayanan tendered his resignation as he being shifted to Mizoram. Kamla Beniwal, who had a running battle with Modi when he was the Gujarat chief minister as governor of the state, was sacked after being transferred to Mizoram.