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Governor out of line again

Uttar Pradesh Governor T.V. Rajeswar needs to be reminded that, as head of State, he is answerable to the Constitution and its proper conventions — not to the political party that installed him, unashamedly for partisan purposes, in the job. Since his appointment in July 2004 to his fourth gubernatorial position over the past quarter century, the former Director of the Intelligence Bureau has set himself in the path of elected governments of India’s most populous State as some kind of countervailing force. The Governor repeatedly spoke out of turn against the Mulayam Singh government, even fuelling speculation in the months preceding the April-May 2007 Assembly elections that the Centre might invoke Article 356 on his recommendation to dismiss the government. After the Bahajun Samaj Party won a famous victory by taking 206 Assembly seats out of 403 — the first time any party won a U.P. Assembly majority since 1991 — Mr. Rajeswar seemed to be playing the Congress party’s political game by going against the grain of Supreme Court decisions and denying, under Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Section 19(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Mayawati and her Cabinet colleague Naseemuddin Siddiqui in the Taj corridor case.

In the latest case, with Congress-BSP relations worsening, Mr. Rajeswar has acted like a Congress party spokesman in coming to the public defence of two IAS officers — Faizabad divisional commissioner Venkateshwarlu and Sultanpur district magistrate Sanjay Kumar — and two subordinate State officials placed under suspension by the Mayawati government for allegedly violating service conduct rules. The charge against these officials is that they indulged in partisan politics by contributing messages glorifying certain members of the Nehru-Gandhi family in a book on the history of the Sultanpur district written by a regional publicity officer of the Government of India. (The Chief Minister has maintained that her action, far from targeting Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, has been even-handed since an amended edition of the book showered praise on her and her government as well.) Whether the suspensions are excessive in this case, whether a strong censure or transfer could not have met the needs of discipline and justice, is a separate question. What is completely out of line is the Governor’s action in writing a letter to the Chief Minister asserting that “the suspension of the two officials was not justified” and in making his disapproval public knowledge. Chief Minister Mayawati is absolutely right in saying that the Governor should have talked to her before writing the letter and in objecting to his going to the press with the contents of his letter. It is certainly time 81-year-old Mr. Rajeswar was replaced by a Governor sensitive to the constitutional restraints imposed by the office.

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