Thursday, Aug 07, 2014

New Delhi: The sacking of Mizoram governor Kamla Beniwal on Wednesday started a row with the opposition Congress party on Thursday accusing the Narendra Modi government of indulging in political vendetta.

Beniwal, 87, is the second Congress party leader to be dismissed by the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government after coming to power in May this year. Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Virendra Kataria was the first to be given the marching orders by the new government.

“The President has directed that Dr. (Smt.) Kamla shall cease to hold the office of the Governor of Mizoram,” a Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s House) communiqué said on Wednesday. Smt or Shrimati is Hindi equivalent of Mrs.

Beniwal’s dismissal came just a month after she was transferred from Gujarat to Mizoram and had barely two months left to retire. She had a running battle with the incumbent Prime Minister Modi while he served as the Gujarat chief minister. Beniwal, under instructions of the Congress party leadership, did not let Modi appoint the Lokpal of his choice and sat over several key legislations.

“She was first transferred in a cavalier manner to a northeastern state and then removed... This is a violation of not only the Supreme Court judgement but also the Constitution. The home minister must explain as to why Kamla Beniwal was removed. Governors are constitutional authorities and cannot be trampled upon or trifled with like this,” Congress party spokesman and former federal minister Manish Tewari said.


Serious allegations

While Home Minister Rajnath Singh has not reacted, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu justified the government decision saying Beniwal was sacked on account of misconduct.

“Action was taken within rules, as per Constitution. There are serious allegations. The government has taken serious note of her conduct,” Naidu said, while denying charges of political vendetta. Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also justified the action. “The decision to remove Kamla Beniwal, the governor, is in accordance with Constitutional principles and conventions with due approval of the President of India,” Prasad said.

The previous Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance government had sacked four governors with BJP background after coming to power in 2004. The Supreme Court in 2010 ruled those sackings as illegal and observed that governors cannot be changed because of change of government. It, however, left a loophole by allowing dismissals over misconduct by governors.

The Modi government is believed to have prepared a dossier against Beniwal which they feel would justify the sacking. It includes frequent use of government plane by Beniwal as Gujarat governor for personal use. She is alleged to have used the government plane 53 times using taxpayers’ money to travel to her hometown Jaipur between 2009 and 2014.

She is also accused to taking government land illegally while serving as a Rajasthan minister in the past by declaring herself as a farmer who has been tilting land for 14 to 16 hours daily for the past five decades.

Modi government approached several governors with Congress Party backgrounds to quit on their own after coming to power. While six of them quit, two have been sacked thus far. Some others like Punjab governor Shivraj Patil, Kerala governor Sheila Dikshit and Rajasthan governor Margaret Alva have refused to quit daring the Modi government to sack them.

By Ajay Jha Correspondent

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