Sushil Modi urges Centre to remove governors appointed by UPA

Patna, Jun 17: Amid reports that a number of

appointed by the previous UPA government may be removed, senior

BJP leader

on Tuesday urged the

government to take a call on the matter on the basis of precedents and the relevant Supreme Court judgement.

The NDA government should seek resignations of the Governors appointed by its predecessor and remove them on the basis of merits citing precedents and in the light of the Supreme Court judgement on the matter, former deputy chief minister Modi told reporters.

On the sidelines of his weekly Janata Durbar, he said there were enough reasons for removal of the governors appointed by the UPA government and claimed that many of them had acted in a partisan manner and brought disrepute to the sanctity of their constitutional positions.

"Partisan and motivated actions by a governor is reasons enough for removal," the senior BJP leader said. Modi said the UPA government too had removed a number of governors in 2004 and justified its action on the ground that the mandate against the government appointing them warranted their removal.

A petition had been filed against this notion in the Supreme Court which ruled that governors could be removed if found to be acting in partisan and motivated manner, he said. Modi charged Bihar Governor D Y Patil with acting as a 'puppet' of the JD(U) government.

Patil appointed five RJD and BJP MLAs as MLCs from his discretionary quota within two days of these MLAs quitting their assembly seats to help reduce strength of the Assembly and enable the Jitan Ram Manjhi government win trust vote last month, Modi said.

Similarly, Patil had appointed Manjhi as the chief minister without ascertaining whether he was elected as the leader of the JD(U) legislature party after Nitish Kumar quit his post taking moral responsibility for the ruling party's debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, Modi alleged.

PTI