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Wednesday, Jul 08, 2009
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New U.P. Governor after budget session?

Atiq Khan

T.V. Rajeswar to continue in the post till the appointment of the new incumbent

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Governor, T.V. Rajeswar, will continue to hold the gubernatorial post till a new incumbent is appointed. Mr. Rajeswar’s five-year term as the Governor of the country’s largest State comes to an end on Wednesday. He assumed charge on July 8, 2004.

Raj Bhavan sources in Lucknow said that Mr. Rajeswar would remain in office till a replacement was named.

All communication in this regard will be made to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, sources have said.

Following the Congress Party’s surprise performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh where it secured 21 seats, speculation had been rife that Mr. Rajeswar would be given an extension, more so with Mayawati at the helm in the State. Sources in the Congress, however, said that he may not be given an extension and a new Governor would step in Lucknow’s Raj Bhavan. The Governor of Rajasthan had been sounded to shift base to Lucknow, but he reportedly declined the offer.

Congress sources claimed that the new appointment is likely to be made after the budget session of Parliament.

Having earlier served as the Governor of West Bengal and Sikkim and Lieutenant Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, Mr. Rajeswar assumed charge in Uttar Pradesh when relations between the then Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh, and the Congress leadership started to deteriorate.

Soon, the State witnessed an unlikely scenario of the Governor and the Chief Minister at loggerheads on many issues. The then Samajwadi Party (SP) government accused the Raj Bhavan of interfering in administrative functioning.

The Governor’s assent to the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Private University, a pet project of Mohammad Azam Khan (now expelled from the SP), emerged as a bone of contention.

More recently, Mr. Rajeswar turned down the Mayawati government’s decision to appoint a retired Dalit bureaucrat, Ram Kumar, as the Chief Information Commissioner of the State. Corruption cases pending against Mr. Ram Kumar were cited as the reason.

The Governor later cleared the appointment of another retired Dalit bureaucrat, Ranjit Singh Pankaj, as the CIC.

Corrections and clarifications

Rajasthan is the country's largest state. The first paragraph of a report "New UP Governor after budget session?" (Some editions, July 8, 2009) had it incorrectly as Uttar Pradesh.

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