The Centre on Sunday appointed six new governors, including Justice S Abdul Nazeer, who was part of the historic 2019 Ayodhya verdict and retired from the Supreme Court barely five weeks ago. The Union government also appointed four BJP leaders to various Raj Bhavans, besides carrying out a rejig of the gubernatorial posts in seven states.
The highlight of the exercise was the Centre accepting Bhagat Singh Koshyari's resignation as Maharashtra governor and sending Rajasthan's leader of opposition Gulab Chand Kataria to Assam. Koshyari had become a liability with his controversial remarks on Chhatrapati Shivaji with elections to key civic bodies, including Mumbai, on the anvil. Sending 78-year-old Kataria out of Jaipur will help have one less contender to deal with in the infighting among the party's top state leadership in Rajasthan, which is due for Assembly polls in November.
Also Read | Koshyari's tumultuous relationship with the MVA
According to a Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson, President Droupadi Murmu accepted the resignations of Koshyari and R K Mathur as the governor of Maharashtra and the lieutenant governor of Ladakh, respectively. As the governor of Jharkhand, Ramesh Bais kept the Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress coalition on tenterhooks and is now appointed governor of Maharashtra.
In the opposition's line of fire over his remarks on Chhatrapati Shivaji, Koshyari said last month that he had conveyed his desire to quit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and would like to spend the remainder of his life reading, writing and in other activities. Koshyari, 80, took charge as Maharashtra governor in September 2019 during political turmoil in the state following Shiv Sena severing its ties with the BJP. He had several run-ins with the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government, including the appointment of 12 members to the state legislative council from the gubernatorial quota, which he never approved. The MVA had accused him of acting in a partisan manner. Opposition parties demanded his sacking after Koshyari described Shivaji as an "icon of olden times".
Also read | Ladakh gets new L-G amid stir over statehood
As the lieutenant governor of the Union Territory in Ladakh, Mathur has recently faced opposition and criticism by locals, including noted education reformist Sonam Wangchuk. Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, Brig B D Mishra (retd), replaces Mathur. Lt Gen Kaiwalya Trivikram Parnaik (retd) was appointed governor of Arunachal Pradesh. He served as commander of the Army's prestigious Northern Command. Justice Nazeer, who retired from the Supreme Court on January 4, was appointed as the new governor of Andhra Pradesh. The incumbent, Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, has been shifted to Chhattisgarh.
Apart from Kataria, three other BJP leaders, including two from Uttar Pradesh, were appointed new governors. Lakshman Prasad Acharya from UP was appointed as the Sikkim governor, former two-term BJP MP from Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore, C P Radhakrishnan, sent to Jharkhand and former Union minister of state for finance and BJP UP leader Shiv Pratap Shukla to Himachal Pradesh. Both Himachal and Jharkhand have non-BJP governments. Acharya is an MLC in UP, while Shukla retired from Rajya Sabha in 2022. Kataria served as the home minister in the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan, and is now a critic turned ally as she faces challenge from state unit chief Satish Poonia, Union minister Gajendra Shekhawat and others for the chief ministerial chair if the BJP were to win the election.
Other than Bais, Mishra and Harichandan, the other transfers included the shifting of Anusuiya Uikye from Chhattisgarh to Manipur, La. Ganesan from Manipur to Nagaland, Phagu Chauhan from Bihar to Meghalaya and Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar from Himachal Pradesh to Bihar.
There have been three previous instances of Supreme Court judges appointed governors - Justice S Fazl Ali was Orissa's governor (1952-54) and Assam's governor (1956-59), Justice Fathima Beevi was appointed Tamil Nadu governor in 1997, five years after she retired from the SC and former CJI P Sathasivam served as Kerala governor from September 2014 to 2019.