Kerala Chief Minister writes to President seeking Governor Arif Mohammed Khan’s immediate recall
The Hindu
Kerala Government-Raj Bhavan stand-off over university Senate nominations and gubernatorial delay in signing Bills passed by the legislature into law came to a head with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan writing a letter to President Droupadi Murmu seeking the immediate recall of Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan.
The protracted Kerala Government-Raj Bhavan stand-off over university Senate nominations and gubernatorial delay in signing Bills passed by the legislature into law came to a head on December 21 (Thursday) with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan writing a letter to President Droupadi Murmu seeking the immediate recall of Governor Arif Mohammed Khan.
The government’s uncustomary demand capped a season of bitter disagreement between Mr. Khan and Mr. Vijayan that often transformed into public wars of words and tit-for-tat accusations bordering on the personal.
Mr. Khan’s arguably norm-breaking approach to students protesting against the Chancellor’s alleged bid to stack the Senates of State-funded universities with Sangh Parivar nominees was the tipping point that prompted the government to demand that the Centre summon back the Governor.
Discomfitingly for the Kerala Government, Mr. Khan had thrown down the gauntlet to Students Federation of India (SFI) activists by stepping out of his official car during a black flag protest in Thiruvananthapuram on December 11. Later, Mr Khan accused Mr Vijayan of inciting SFI activists to harm “me physically”.
An irate Mr. Khan had also painted a grim picture of the State’s law and order situation, alleging that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] “criminals” ruled the roads.
On December 16, Mr. Khan camped at the Calicut University campus guest house in Malappuram in a direct dare to the SFI.
Consequently, the SFI swamped the campus with protests demanding that Mr. Khan “go back”. The activists also placed banners and posters across the campus, accusing Mr. Khan of being the cat’s paw of the Sangh Parivar and drawing an ideological equivalency between the Governor and Hindu majoritarian nationalist ideologue V.D. Savarkar.
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