NEW DELHI: With Goa Governor B V Wanchoo’s resignation on Friday, the process to fill the vacancies of gubernatorial posts is now on. Sources said the names of party veterans were almost final and could be announced ahead of the Budget session.
BJP sources said the six vacancies created after the Centre pushed the incumbents to put in their papers would be filled by a ‘huge pool’ of party veterans. “The party has many senior leaders who would be allotted these posts, while the technocrats or former bureaucrats may not be considered soon,” a BJP leader said.
Deliberations were on within the party, with BJP chief Rajnath Singh, who is also the Union Home Minister, discussing the issue with his senior cabinet colleagues. Party general secretary Amit Shah, who is tipped to replace Rajnath as the new BJP chief, met the latter at his North Block office on Friday. Sources said senior leaders who have been elected as MPs were not being considered for the post.
There was also reluctance on the part of some of the BJP leaders to head to these largely ‘ceremonial’ posts.
Among the names currently considered for the posts are Kalyan Singh, Kesari Nath Tripathi, Ram Naik, Lalji Tandon, Kailash Joshi and O Rajagopal.
The BJP leaders will head to the six states to fill the posts. Five Governors resigned after the Centre sought their removal- B V Wanchoo (Goa), M K Narayanan (West Bengal), B L Joshi (Uttar Pradesh), Shekhar Dutt (Chhattisgarh) and Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland). Two governors H R Bhardwaj in Karnataka and Devanand Konwar retired on June 28. Two more governors will complete their tenure in July-August: Haryana Governor Jagannath Pahadia is due to retire on July 26, 2014 while Rajasthan Governor Margaret Alva will complete her tenure on August 5, 2014.
There were 18 Congress leaders occupying the Raj Bhawans including Janaki Ballab Patnaik in Assam, D Y Patil in Bihar, Kamala Beniwal in Gujarat and Sheila Dikshit in Kerala. And now the Govt has to transfer them to smaller states, rather than forcibly removing them which would lead to row.
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