On role of governors

The unsavoury spectacle of Governor R.N. Ravi walking out of the Budget session witnessed in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Monday raises questions about the increasingly partisan behaviour of the Governors in the States. Earlier, the police officer-turned-Governor, had skipped vital parts of speech prepared by the Government he is mandated to aid and advise. The portions skipped delineated the ideals of Dravidian form of governance and referred to noted icons of the Dravidian movements and politicians who led the State in the past.

The episode is the latest in the ongoing tenuous ties and tussles between the governors and the State governments. The charge that the governors are seen as the ‘agents of the Centre’, is getting reinforced by acts of the occupants of Raj Bhavan across several states. Mr. Ravi has been sitting on nearly 20 bills passed by the Assembly, two of them being opposition to state’s inclusion into the NEET and the National Education Policy 2020. The bill seeking to exclude the state from the NEET was unanimously passed by the House.

The interference by Governors in the state administration first came to be noticed with Ms. Kiran Bedi roaming the roads of Puducherry in the dead of night in 2017. She was riding as a pillion on the bike of a Raj Nivas employee, ostensibly to check women’s safety on the Union Territory’s streets during the nights. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar’s antics against West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress Government are too well-known to be recounted.

Bengal BJP chief Suvendu Adhikari’s remark that ‘they missed their guardian’ after his exit from the State is illustrative of the adversarial role he played against the Mamata Banerjee government during his 3-year occupation of Raj Bhavan in Kolkota. But perhaps it is Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan who surpassed all the limits of decorum and civility expected from the high office by asking certain ministers to remit office for, he had withdrawn his pleasure.

He even berated Malayalis by once observing that, ‘it seems all intelligent Malayalis have gone abroad’. Jharkhand Governor Ramesh Bais too had been sitting over three bills leading to charge by the Hemant Soren-led Government that he was impeding the development of the State. Tribals are especially sore over his returning the bill for the formation of a tribal advisory council.

Not to remain behind, Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan has also blocked eight bills from becoming Acts by withholding her consent. With statements from Governors laced with combativeness and actions emanating from the Raj Bhavans often smacking of direct takeover of the administration, constitutional breakdown and objectionable and awkward behavior, both the relevance and roles of governors are coming under censure.

It was only in this backdrop that the Tamil Nadu Assembly passed a resolution urging recall of the governor. While that may not be the ideal solution, it is essential to revisit the institution of governor, consider the need to fix parameters for their discretionary powers and designate a definite schedule for their assent to make the Bill into an Act beyond which it could be deemed to have been come into force.