Governor-designate for Nagaland Vakkom Purushothaman on Friday tendered his resignation to President Pranab Mukherjee in protest against the Centre’s decision to transfer him from Mizoram to Nagaland. Vakkom, an 86-year-old veteran Congressman, was appointed as Mizoram Governor in September, 2011.
“The Government or anybody in it had not asked for my opinion on the decision to transfer me. Governor is a constitutional authority. It is absolutely wrong to transfer a constitutional authority in the way an ordinary bureaucrat is transferred,” Vakkom said in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
He said that neither any official nor any department of the Central Government had asked him to resign as Governor after the NDA Government assumed office. There were reports that he had conveyed his displeasure at the transfer decision to the Union Home Ministry.
According to Vakkom, it was unjust to change a Governor using pressure after appointing him in a State for five years. He had announced his decision to resign on Thursday itself. However, he did not respond to a query on what Kerala Governor Sheila Dikshit would be doing now even as reports suggested that she could now be shifted to Nagaland.
Vakkom, a former Kerala Minister, was appointed lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar in 1993 but he resigned in 1996 to fight election to the Kerala Assembly from the Attingal seat. Though he could not bag the seat in that election, he contested in the same seat again in 2001 and won it.
Announcing his resignation, Vakkom said he would now go back to active politics though he did not intend to get involved in electoral politics. “I will work as an ordinary party man. I don’t want any position. There are enough opportunities to work as an ordinary Congressman,” he said.
However, the announcement of his wish to return to active politics attracted immediate criticisms from the State Congress itself. R Chandrasekharan, president of the Kerala INTUC, said that veterans like Vakkom had already made their contributions to the party and should now stay away to make way for the new generation.
“I am not disregarding the great contributions people like Vakkom have made to the party. But it is a bit odd for leaders like him to feel the urge to get back into active politics especially at a time when it is difficult for the Congress to allot positions to the already active leaders. The best thing he can do is to retire,” Chandrasekharan said in Delhi.
Vakkom had served as a member of the Kerala Assembly several times and had been a member of the lok Sabha twice. He was the Speaker of Kerala Assembly when AK Antony was Chief Minister between 2001 and 2004. When Oommen Chandy took over as Chief Minister from Antony in 2004, Vakkom became the Finance Minister.
During the last few weeks, Governors of Goa, BV Wanchoo, West Bengal MK Narayanan, Uttar Pradesh Bl Joshi, Chhattisgarh Shekhar Dutt, and Nagaland Ashwani Kumar resigned following suggestion from the Centre. Two Governors HR Bhardwaj (Karnataka) and Devanand Konwar retired late last month.
However, a few other Governors appointed by the previous UPA regime continue to remain in office. They include K Sankaranarayanan (Maharashtra), Sheila Dikshit (Kerala), Jaganath Pahadia (Haryana), Kamala Beniwal (Mizoram), Shivraj V Patil (Punjab), besides some others. Beniwal was recently transferred from Gujarat to Mizoram.