Arif Khan picked for Kerala, Koshyari Maharashtra, Soundararajan Telangana, Kalraj Raj
An erstwhile prominent Muslim face of the Congress who protested against then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s move to rescind the Supreme Court verdict for maintenance to triple talaq victim Shah Bano, Arif Mohammed Khan was on Sunday appointed the Governor of Kerala, where the BJP is eager to gain a foothold.
Besides Khan, who joined the BJP in 2007, the Centre appointed three more party leaders as Governors and replaced incumbent Kalyan Singh in Rajasthan. Singh will now lose immunity from trial in the Babri Masjid demolition case after he retires from the gubernatorial post on Monday.
While BJP leader and former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari, 77, will be the new Governor of Maharashtra, BJP’s Tamil Nadu chief Tamilisai Soundararajan, 58, has been appointed the Governor of Telangana, and former Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatraya, 72, has been choses as Himachal Pradesh Governor, replacing Kalraj Mishra (78), who will succeed Kalyan Singh as the Governor of Rajasthan.
Koshyari replaces Vidya Sagar Rao as the Maharashtra Governor, while Soundararajan will succeed ESL Narasimhan in Telangana.
Reacting to Khan’s appointment as Governor, the Congress said it was an “entirely expected decision” as the his recent statements were an indicator of him getting rewarded by the BJP.
“Congratulations to Arif Mohammed Khan on being appointed as Governor of Kerala. An entirely expected decision. His statements made in the recent times were an indicator of him soon getting rewarded by the BJP. The reward is well deserved and was long awaited,” Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in a statement.
Khan, who will succeed former Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam in the Kerala Raj Bhavan, has been a vocal critic of the practice of instant triple talaq and calling for reforms in the Muslim personal laws for long.
Khan’s speech in Parliament in 1985 in the wake of the Shah Bano judgment extending the Rajiv Gandhi Government’s initial support to it was much acclaimed.
However, when the Rajiv Gandhi Government made a U-turn under pressure from Muslim clerics and brought a Bill to nullify the Supreme Court verdict, Khan resigned from the Ministry. The Uttar Pradesh politician later joined the BJP in 2007 but remained inactive since then.
Recently, when the Modi Government brought a Bill to criminalise the practice of instant triple talaq, Khan supported it. In the Shah Bano case, the Supreme Court had delivered a judgment favouring maintenance to an aggrieved divorced Muslim woman.
On April 19, 2017, the Supreme Court had ordered revival of criminal conspiracy charges in the Babri Masjid demolition case against senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati. But the SC had clarified that Kalyan Singh, who was the CM of UP at time the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992, could not be brought in as an accused to face trial in view of the constitutional immunity granted to Governors under Article 361 of the Constitution.