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Tuesday, Jun 29, 2004

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National

Governors: Advani leads BJP delegation to Kalam

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 28. A Bharatiya Janata Party delegation led by the Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, met the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and complained that the Government was ``pressuring'' some Governors to put in their papers. Two days ago, Mr. Advani and some BJP leaders met the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, on the same issue.

Mr. Advani told reporters after the 30-minute meeting with the President that the delegation had impressed upon Mr. Kalam that the Government was trying to remove some Governors ``for political reasons'' and that this was not acceptable. ``It seems that those [Governors] who had relations with the BJP are being informed that they should resign, and if they don't, they will be removed,'' he said.

Mr. Advani claimed that during the Vajpayee Government's term the ruling National Democratic Alliance had ``established a tradition'' of not disturbing Governors.

An exception was made in the case of two Governors (Goa and Mizoram) who had been appointed ``after'' the notification of the 1998 Lok Sabha polls.

The delegation comprised the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, the former Union Ministers, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and B.C. Bhanduri, the deputy leader of the BJP in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra, and the party vice-president, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

They told Mr. Kalam that they had brought this matter to the notice of the Prime Minister two days ago. The Governors enjoyed a ``fixed tenure'' and while the President could at any time ``withdraw his pleasure'' and thus bring their tenure to an abrupt end, this should be done only for substantive reasons such as allegations of corruption or treason against them. Simply because a Governor had links with a political party should not be sufficient reason for his dismissal.

Party leaders told reporters that the President said that he would study the precedents and the constitutional and legal position.

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