Chief Minister KCR’s attitude towards Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan depends on his relations with the Government in New Delhi
Governors in India over the decades were talking less and conducting themselves with regal finesse. Chief Ministers and State Governments were treating them with due respect and diligence. After the BJP came to power in 2014 for the second time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose persons with RSS background or BJP leaders for the titular positions. The Modi-era Governors, unlike the ones appointed by Atal Behari Vajpayee, are at loggerheads with non-BJP Chief Ministers.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have running battles since his appointment. Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray are not pulling along well. Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi and Chief Minister M K Stalin don’t see eye to eye on many issues. Tamilisai Soundararajan, the Telangana Governor, has joined the band of activist Governors who thrive on controversies.
In united Andhra Pradesh there were occasions when Governors played questionable politics. Ram Lal who dethroned NTR for a month became notorious and the movement for restoration of democracy spearheaded by the TDP founder ended only after Ram Lal was replaced by a thorough gentleman like Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma who gave the oath of office to NTR after restoring him as Chief Minister. NTR himself had no respect for Governor Kumudben Joshi but he followed protocol. NTR had problems with Krishan Kanth who decided in favour of Chandrababu Naidu but the actor-turned-politician was not in a position to fight.
The relations between Raj Bhavan and Pragati Bhavan (residence of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao) deteriorated suddenly. Tamilisai went to Delhi and met Modi on April 6 and Union Home Minister Amit Shah the following day. She also spoke to the media without any inhibition ventilating her frustration with the attitude of KCR. Till some months ago, they were on the best of terms. When she did not sign the file pertaining to Kaushik Reddy’s nomination to Legislative Council under the Governor’s quota, the trouble started.
In the meanwhile, KCR changed his policy and started attacking the BJP government and Modi directly. He is also meeting non-BJP Chief Ministers like Uddhav Thackeray and Stalin to form a non-BJP and non-Congress front. KCR’s efforts were slowed down after the BJP retained all the four States with handsome majorities. But he raised the paddy bogey demanding the Centre to buy paddy, not rice, as it has been doing in Punjab. He asked for one nation, one procurement policy.
Governor Tamilisai has a number of grievances. First and foremost, she has not been shown normal courtesies that are mandatory for a Governor. When she visited Yadadri, the renovated temple of Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy, even the Executive Officer was not present to welcome her. No minister and no district collector cared to receive her. Additional Collector Deepak Tiwari was there to greet her with a sapling. When her mother died at the Raj Bhavan, the President of India and the Prime Minister called to say condolences, but KCR did not care to pay floral tributes to the departed soul. He did not even call her. She said her request to provide a special flight to take her mother’s body to Chennai was turned down by the Chief Minister. She said all her tours in the State in the last six months were either by road or by train even if it was a distant destination. She has not been invited by the Government to public functions for some months. She travelled to the forest area in Mulugu district on her own to see Sammakka, SaralakkaJaatara where neither the district collector not Superintendent of Police was present to receive her. She was not invited to address the joint session of legislature before the budget was presented. Had the relations been good, the CM would have personally invited the Governor to address the joint session.
Though KCR did not say anything openly against the Governor, his son K. Taraka Rama Rao, the working president of TRS and Minister for Municipal Administration and Information Technology, Jagadish Reddy, energy minister, and others criticized the Governor for airing her views in Delhi. KTR asked when a Tamil Nadu BJP leader Tamilisai could be nominated as Governor what was wrong in nominating Kaushik Reddy as an MLC? Jagadish Reddy said she visited Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple as a BJP person. Tamilisai took serious objection to this comment. “I visited the temple as a devotee along with my husband. Did I take BJP flag or BJP leadership to the temple? I did not even care whether the protocol was followed,” said Tamilisai in Delhi after meeting Amit Shah. She, in turn, challenged the ministers to show one instance where she used Raj Bhavan for promoting BJP interests. “I am prepared to reveal the appointments given in the last two years” she volunteered. The Governor said she is entitled to respect as a woman if not as a Governor. She used to call CM ‘Anna (brother)’ and she deserved to be treated well even as a sister.
Tamilisai said she felt ignored and insulted by some actions of the government. She said the ministers and officials have been skipping important events at Raj Bhavan and they should understand that the invitation was not from an individual. The latest cut was on Ugadi day when not a single TRS leader or government official accepted her invitation to visit Raj Bhavan. Even in Delhi, the Commissioner of Telangana Bhavan reportedly did not receive her or met her although she was at Sabari block in the Bhavan for two days.
The Governor went on to lambast the State government. She spoke of the drugs mafia and neglected Government hospitals and universities where 60 percent of faculty positions are lying vacant. ‘As a mother I feel bad for the youth in the State who are becoming drug addicts,’ she said. She is understood to have given her report on drugs and corruption to the Prime Minister and Home Minister.
KTR, however, asserted that they have great respect for the constitutional post of Governor. He said, “Why should we have any disharmony with the constitutional head.” The TRS leaders have taken objection to the Governor making allegations of corruption.
The attitude of the Chief Minister towards the Governor depends on the relationship hehas with the Prime Minister and the BJP. KCR was friendly with the NDA dispensation till recently supporting all the Bills, including the three controversial farm Bills, introduced by Modi government in Parliament. KCR probably imagined, as did Chandrababu Naidu in 2018, that the BJP would lose in UP and other three States in the 2022 assembly elections and there would be room for him to play a national role in mobilizing regional parties on one plank. In spite of the solid win by the BJP, the TRS continues to be belligerent and the agitation to force the Centre to buy paddy goes on unabated. How would KCR manage the contradictions and find a way to normalize the relationship with the BJP and the Prime Minister remains in the realm of imagination.
(The writer is a senior journalist and Editor, primepost, a news website based out of Hyderabad. The views expressed are personal.)
