by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Exclusive story
10 Governors' posts up for grab
Mega race in BJP begins
All retiring Between July-December
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, June 7
A mega race for Governors has begun in the BJP as ten of them are due to retire in ten states between July to December this year.
There is a long queue of party veterans who are aspiring to be governors as many of them could not make the cut to contest Lok Sabha polls and others opting out due to health & other reasons. The huge vacancies of governors in 2019 itself has given a ray of hope to many of these veterans to continue to be in the political arena.
As many as four of the governors are due to retire in July itself beginning with Gujrat Governor Om Prakash Kohli whose term is ending on July 15 this year. The Nagaland Governor Padmanabha Acharya who has always been in the news for wrong reasons, will also complete his tenure on July 19. He will be followed by UP Governor Ram Naik who is to retire on July 21 and West Bengal Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi completes his five year term on July 23.
Come August and September, four more NDA appointed governors. These are C Vidya Sagar Rao of Maharashtra on August 30, Mridula Sinha of Goa on August 31, Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala on September 1 and Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh on September 4.
Then comes the ending of five year tenure of Justice P Sathasivam, a former CJI of Supreme Court who was rewarded with the post of Kerala Governor on September 5.
The issue of longest serving governor of India ESL Narasimhan who was appointed by the UPA government in December 2009 will also be settled this year. He came largely due to his proximity with Andhra Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. PM Modi obliged Naidu as he insisted on Narasimhan's continuation. Now that his ten year tenure will end, he is likely to go.
Sources close to the Prime Minister's Office say that the PM is not inclined to appoint bureaucrats or retired officers as Governors except in Union Territories where administrators are needed. He appoints political persons as governors and it is largely because of this very reason that there is ray of hope of BJP veterans to occupy governor houses.
Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalraj Mishra, Bijoya Chakravarty (Assam), Kariya Munda (Jharkhand), Bhagat Singh Koshiyari (Uttrakhand), Sumitra Mahajan (Madhya Pradesh), Bandaru Dattatreya Andhra Pradesh), are some of the senior BJP leaders who did not contest the Lok Sabha polls and hoping to be governors. Former External Affairs Sushma Swaraj is expected to play a political role though she didn't contest. But there is no Rajya Sabha seat available for her at least during 2019 and will have to wait for 2020.
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