Governor should not resign. Instead, governors post should be abolished – Times of India

The DMK has demanded the resignation of Tamil Nadu governor R N Ravi. And thats not fair. What did he do? Well, the DMK says the problem is that he didnt do anything on the bill to abolish NEET. Its not just about the governors inaction over the anti-NEET bill (which I think is not a solution to ensure equal opportunities to students of all economic sections). Its not the problem with the governor; its the problem with the governors post. Governors have always been representatives even instruments of the Union government on whose advice the President installs them in Raj Bhavans across the country. Hence the conflicts between the government and the governors in states ruled by parties that oppose the one in power at the Centre.

Some of those ensconced in the palatial comforts of Raj Bhavans get into vociferous fights with the government as we have seen in Bengal, Kerala, Telangana, Delhi and Puducherry; some, like the one in Tamil Nadu, remain silently belligerent. For the latter, inaction is the weapon. Remember Banwarilal Purohit? The governor, who spent long hours trying to learn Tamil, didnt deem it urgent to forward to the President a resolution the state assembly passed in September 2018 recommending the release of all the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts till the Supreme Court disturbed the gubernatorial slumber two years later.

When the apex court set January 2021 as the deadline for the governor to act, he forwarded it to the President, who, since then, has been sitting on it.

In the case of the Tamil Nadu NEET abolition bill, the governor first erred in listing out the wrong reasons for sending it back to the government (you, me and His Excellency can disagree with the contents of the bill, but thats not a reason for the governor to send it back). Less than a week after the governor returned the bill to the government in the first week of February, the assembly re-adopted the bill and sent it again to the Raj Bhavan. I leave it to legal experts to analyse the constitutional propriety of the governors inaction, but his not forwarding the bill to the President shows again that the governor is but a political puppet.

Heres an old suggestion: Abolish the governors post. If the primary job of a governor is to swear in the chief minister and the cabinet of ministers, and address the assembly at the opening session, these can be done by the chief justice of the high court or the speaker of the assembly. The contribution of governors as chancellors of universities has been abysmal, so nobody will miss them there. As for Centre-state relationship we can have liaison officers who can work out of much smaller offices than the 150-acre Raj Bhavan that employs more than 600 people to work for one family.

So, what do we do with the Raj Bhavans? They should be opened to the public as leisure spots. Some of them could be converted into museums that house exhibits of the origin, evolution and end of a colonial relic called, well, the Raj Bhavan. The Chennai Raj Bhavan is special in that it is part of a national park in the middle of the city something no other Indian city can boast of (Mumbai has a national park on its periphery).

Here, public access could be regulated so as to not disturb the wildlife. Chennai Raj Bhavan should continue to be home for protected species. I mean the likes of black buck.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Governor should not resign. Instead, governors post should be abolished - Times of India