The Government on Saturday sacked Mizoram Governor Aziz Qureshi. He is the second one to be sacked after Kamla Beniwal, who too, incidentally, was occupying the gubernatorial position in the same State at the time of her removal.
West Bengal Government Keshari Nath Tripathi has been asked to discharge the functions of the Mizoram Governor in addition to his own duties, until regular arrangements are made, according to a brief statement issued here by the Rashtrapati Bhavan. “Qureshi shall cease to hold the office of the Governor of Mizoram,” it said.
The sacked Mizoram Governor has had a running feud with the Centre and even approached the Supreme Court against attempts to ease him out. Qureshi, 74, had taken over as the Governor of Mizoram on January 9, after being transferred from Uttarakhand and had a tenure up to May 2017. Some of the Governors, including Qureshi and Beniwal, whom the Centre wanted to resign, but did not, were transferred to Mizoram.
After the new Government took over, many a Governor appointed by the previous UPA regime were eased out including Beniwal, 87, who had served in Gujarat earlier and had a running battle with Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was the State’s Chief Minister. Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan, who was also transferred to Mizoram, had tendered his resignation, refusing to take charge of his new assignment.
In his petition in the SC, Qureshi, a senior Congress leader, had claimed that after the NDA Government came to power, then Home Secretary Anil Goswami had called him on July 30 and asked him to tender resignation and made it clear that he would be removed from office if he does not step down. He alleged, in his petition, that Goswami again called him on August 8 insisting that he resign.
The Government had denied his allegations. Virendra Kataria, a former Congress leader, was also terminated as Puducherry lieutenant Governor while four others — MK Narayanan (West Bengal), Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland), Bl Joshi (UP), Shekhar Dutt (Chhattisgarh) and BV Wanchoo (Goa) — picked up ‘suggestions’ from the Union Home Ministry and put in their papers.
With the removal of Qureshi, the North-Eastern State of Mizoram is turning out to be a waterloo for Governors with six of them exiting in just nine months. The ‘jinx’ with the gubernatorial post in Mizoram began in July last year when V Purushottam, who was transferred to neighbouring Nagaland by the Modi Government, quit saying that he had not been consulted.
This was followed by transfer of Beniwal from Gujarat to Mizoram. She took over as the 12th Governor on July 6 but the tenure remained short-lived as she was sacked by the Government for alleged impropriety, a charge denied by her, exactly a month later. She had two months of her tenure left. This was followed by transfer of Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan to Mizoram. He, however, refused to take charge and quit soon after his transfer order was issued on August 24 last.
Former Union Home Secretary VK Duggal, who was the then Governor of Manipur, was given the additional charge of Mizoram. His tenure too was shortlived thereafter only for 20 days as he quit on August 28. Thereafter, KK Paul was given the additional charge of Mizoram along with Meghalaya till he was transferred to Uttarakhand to replace Qureshi.