The Hindu : Gubernatorial office as reward

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 26, 2002

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Gubernatorial office as reward

GUBERNATORIAL APPOINTMENTS IN the normal course should be regarded as little more than an administrative matter and political implications, if any, could only be marginal. This should be more the case with the choice of a person as the Lieutenant-Governor of Pondicherry. But then, there is more to K. R. Malkani taking over from Rajani Rai at the Pondicherry Raj Niwas than just an administrative decision. Mr. Malkani's claim to fame, after all, has not been his record as a bureaucrat or his contribution to public life or a person of eminence (as recommended by the Sarkaria Commission). Instead, Mr. Malkani's only credentials for being considered for appointment as Lt. Governor of Pondicherry have been his years of association with the BJP. This certainly is in conflict with the recommendation of the Sarkaria Commission that "the Governor should be one who has not taken too great a part in politics generally and particularly in the recent past". The BJP after having been critical in the past of the practice of appointing active members of the Congress to gubernatorial positions has been unabashed in doing the very same thing every time it has found a chance to fill such posts ever since it came to power in February 1998.

Mr. Malkani's appointment is not the first instance of this kind insofar as the BJP is concerned. It was only a few weeks ago that Rama Jois, a former High Court judge, was posted as Governor of Jharkhand. In his case too, rather than his past as a High Court judge, it was his record in the immediate past (during which he was associated with the VHP's campaign on the Ayodhya issue) that earned him the post. Similarly, the ruling NDA had posted Sikander Bhakt as Governor of Kerala in the same way as Suraj Bhan was appointed as the Uttar Pradesh Governor (in April 1998). Mr. Bhan was a senior leader of the BJP in Haryana and his gubernatorial assignment came soon after his defeat in the February 1998 general elections. The BJP treated the august office of Governor as a place for rehabilitating its leaders who had lost out in electoral races. The appointment of Mr. Malkani now and Mr. Bhakt a few months ago fall in a similar category. These two "senior leaders" were to be accommodated in "return" for the "services" they rendered to the party. Such considerations being put to play in the context of appointing persons to Ccnstitutional office will only contribute further to the growing perception about the political class as a whole being concerned only about self-preservation. This certainly cannot help the cause of democracy.

There is yet another aspect to appointing politicians as Governors. The track record of S. S. Bhandari could be a case in this context. After he was sent as Governor of Bihar, Mr. Bhandari did not conceal, even for a while, his partisan agenda and went about recommending the dismissal of the Rabri Devi Government in the State. This game plan was foiled only because the Supreme Court (in the S. R. Bommai case) had defined Article 356 of the Constitution in such a manner that its abuse for partisan purposes was not possible. Mr. Bhandari proved his worth (from the BJP's point of view) even after he was shifted out of Patna and posted as Gujarat Governor. He looked the other way even when the State was engulfed by one of the worst communal carnages in recent times. The Sarkaria Commission's recommendation against appointing persons known for their partisan political positions as Governors was for this very reason. It may be true that the BJP-led NDA is not the only platform guilty of reducing the gubernatorial positions to rehabilitatory mechanisms to accommodate the disgruntled elements in its stable. But then, the BJP had never missed an opportunity within and outside Parliament to wax eloquent on its commitment to the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission. The NDA's National Agenda for Governance too held out the implementation of the recommendations as its priority.

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