End Governor-CM tussle in Telangana
For some time now, a tussle has been going on between Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. The last time KCR had called on her was in June. The CM appears to be upset and deeply wounded by the governor’s refusal in nominating to the Legislative Council one P Kaushik Reddy who defected to the TRS from the Congress. Then began the incidents of Tamilisai being sidelined—the Assembly budget session began without the customary governor’s address, ministers and officials started boycotting her for all the functions held both inside and outside Raj Bhavan, district collectors and SPs too began avoiding receiving her whenever she was on a visit, and recently in the Bhadrachalam Ram temple, only lower-rung officials were sent to attend to her.
However, the face-off between these two leaders is not as nasty as in Maharashtra where Governor B S Koshyari has been sitting tight on the state’s recommendations for the nomination of 12 leaders as members of the Council. But there is no guarantee that Telangana would not go the Maharashtra or West Bengal way. After briefing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, the governor said that, if she so desired, she could have dismissed the KCR ministry on the pretext that the gap between two Assembly sessions was more than six months. She has been unusually vocal for quite some time—even sharing her outbursts with the media.
The anti-BJP political climate in the state may have given rise to the fissures that had developed but the two leaders who occupy constitutionally created positions should know better. The governor and the CM cannot be at loggerheads. Both the dignitaries are riding high horses, further complicating matters. While holding the Budget session of the Assembly without the governor’s address on the pretext that the last session was not prorogued is surely a lame excuse, the governor, on her part, should have refrained from saying that she could dismiss the government at will. It would be prudent for Tamilisai to not take the Koshyari-Jagdeep Dhankhar path in order to appease her bosses while KCR could set an example by giving the governor the respect she deserves.