by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
N N Vohra offers to quit as J&K Governor
Lt Gen. Hasnain, Rajiv Meharshi in race
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, June 26
With the Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra expressing his desire to relinquish the charge of the trouble-torn state, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to take a call on his successor immediately after his arrival from his current US tour.
Highly placed sources say that Vohra had met the Prime Minister last month and conveyed his inability to continue. Vohra has been Governor of the troubled state for more than nine years. A career bureaucrat, Vohra was appointed by the Manmohan Singh government as J&K Governor on June 25, 2008. Though his tenure had ended long ago, he continued in the post.
It transpires that the Modi government has decided to bring in a new governor as Vohra has served for nine years and no tangible results came. Though the name of Union Home Secretary Rajiv Meharshi, a trusted bureaucrat of the present government, is in the reckoning. But it now transpires that PM Modi may do which none of his predecessors dared to do.
Informed sources in the South Block say that Modi may experiment by sending Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain who is a three-Star General of the Indian Army. Of the 12 Governors that J&K has seen since Independence, none of them belonged to the minority community. A worried Modi government undertook an extensive exercise before zeroing on a panel of names including Lt. Gen. Ata Husnain. His name emerged as the Valley is slipping out of the hands with the each passing day and the South Block is extremely worried.
Gen Hasnain has a wide experience of working in the state where he served as General Officer Commanding in Jammu and Kashmir in 2010-2011. He set an excellent example of right use of soft power with hard power.
It may be mentioned that Modi appointed a former Director of Intelligence Bureau as international envoy on terrorism. Despite being a UPA government appointee Ibrahim had opposed certain "political actions" of the UPA regime.
Sources say that a final decision on the successor of Vohra will be taken some time early July.
Ends
