THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A day After Governor Arif Mohammed Khan directed a tirade against the state government, the ruling Left front approached the President seeking her urgent intervention. In a letter to Droupadi Murmu, senior CPI leader Binoy Viswam said Khan has been adopting a confrontational approach towards the LDF government in Kerala.
In his letter, the Rajya Sabha member also underscored the need to retain the dignity of the governor’s office. Khan has been acting like a state-level politician and has crossed all constitutional limits, the letter said.“His practice of open collision with the state government is clearly anti-constitutional. As a governor, he is sworn to preserve, protect and defend the constitution and law. But he has become the proverbial gold that rusts,” said Viswam referring to the extraordinary press conference held on Monday, wherein Khan had raised a series of allegations against the state government and the chief minister. The governor even said he was not inclined to assent the bills that were passed by the state assembly, the letter said.
Khan’s open confrontation with the state government amounts to being anti-constitutional as the governor’s office too is bound to abide by it, the letter said. In a federal system, the governor is a hyphen between the state and the Centre. Viswam also quoted Justice V R Krishna Iyer’s famous verdict that the governor must be strictly neutral in state politics and not use his office for politicking from within.
Viswam urged the President to take cognisance of the gravity of the situation and issue urgent directives to the governor to maintain the sanctity and decorum of his office and to abstain from interfering in the functioning of the state government.
CPM, CM HIT OUT AT GUV AFTER HE OPPOSED ‘ILLEGAL’ POSTINGS: SOBHA SURENDRAN
T’Puram: The CPM and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had no complaints against Governor Arif Mohammed Khan until he began questioning the illegal appointment of the wife of a person close to the chief minister, BJP state vice-president Sobha Surendran has said. She said Pinarayi wants the governor to act like the CPM state secretary and blindly give assent to ‘illegal’ actions of the government. She added that the governor had made a huge sacrifice by not going behind bigger responsibilities. But he is now upset due to the CPM’s pressure tactics, she added.