Punjab Governor and chief minister on a collision course again

| | Chandigarh
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Punjab Governor and chief minister on a collision course again

Friday, 24 February 2023 | Monika Malik | Chandigarh


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The ongoing slugfest between Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann reached another level on Thursday. Refusing to give approval to the Chief Minister’s request to summon Vidhan Sabha’s Budget session from March 3, Purohit made it clear that he would take a decision only after getting legal advice over Mann’s “derogatory” and “unconstitutional” tweet and letter addressed to him on February 13 and 14, respectively.
 
Notably, the State Cabinet on Tuesday decided to summon the budget session from March 3, for which the Governor’s nod is required. For the same, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – led State Government had written to the Governor to approve the summoning of the session.
 
Responding to the same letter, the Governor, in a letter addressed to the Chief Minister, reminded him of the tweet and letter in which Mann had not only refused to respond to the “significant” issues raised by Purohit but had also apparently challenged his authority while asking Purohit to first “explain the qualifications” for appointing a person on the coveted post of the Governor by the Centre.
 
“Since your tweet and letter both are not only patently unconstitutional but extremely derogatory also, therefore, I am compelled to take legal advice on this issue. Only after getting legal advice. I will take a decision on your request,” Purohit said in his letter, in which he reproduced the contents of his tweet and letter with its English translation.
 
In the said tweet, Mann (on February 13) declared that his Government was answerable to the people of Punjab and not to “any person appointed by the Centre”.
 
Mann’s assertion had come after Purohit, in a strongly-worded letter, lambasted him for not replying to his letters and treating it “with contempt”. Setting fortnight as a deadline, Purohit had asked the Chief Minister to furnish information on various counts, including criteria of selecting Principals for a recent Singapore tour, appointment of a “tainted” person as Punjab Information and Communication and Technology Corporation Limited (Punjab Infotech) chairman, among others.
 
A day later (on February 14), Mann shot off a brief letter to the Governor asking him to “explain the qualifications being adopted by the Government of India (GoI) for appointing a person to this coveted post” before asking the State Government to explain criteria for sending principals to Singapore.
 
Mann, in his letter to the Governor, had stated, “The residents of the State want to ask that in dearth of any fixed criteria for appointing a person to the post of Governor, how the Union Government appoints the Governors to various states.”
 
“When there are no fixed qualifications laid down in the Constitution of India for this appointment, how the Governors are appointed,” asked Mann, while urging the Governor to explain this so that the knowledge of Punjabis can be enhanced.
 
The Chief Minister said that prior to enquiring him about the selection process to send Principals to Singapore for training, the Governor must answer this question. “All the issues raised by the Governor in a letter to me are the issues related to jurisdiction of the state. For these issues, I am accountable to the three crore Punjabis who have elected me with a whopping mandate,” said Mann.
 
Also speaking during a special orientation programme for the legislators in Vidhan Sabha, Mann asserted, “Punjab’s decisions should be taken by elected representatives and not by selected ones.”
 
The fresh round of slugfest started with Purohit writing a letter to the Chief Minister seeking full details regarding the selection of school principals sent to Singapore for training recently, along with the expenditure incurred on the same. Along with this, he also attached four other letters on different issues that he had raised in the past few months, asking the Chief Minister to reply within a fortnight.
 
Purohit had accused Mann that he “never cared to reply” to his letters in the past, while treating the same with contempt.
 
He had also reminded Mann that the people did not elect him to run the state according to his “whims and fancies", but he was “bound" to furnish any information sought by Raj Bhavan under the Constitution.

In fact, the ruling party had even accused Purohit of acting “at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)”, while demanding that he should be shifted from the State immediately.
 

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