Mumbai: Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan has resigned hours after being transferred to Mizoram by the government on Sunday.
“Today I resigned. I have been here for four and a half years. It is not possible for me to go to Mizoram now. There is no other reason,” he told the media.
“My tongue will have another two inches from tomorrow. I am a free citizen,” he said, adding that he had sent his resignation to President Pranab Mukherjee.
Sankaranarayanan also indicated that he may return to active politics saying, “As the Governor, I wasn’t involved in politics. From today, I will definitely be involved in active politicsâ€.
He was among the dozen governors, appointed by the UPA, who were earlier asked to resign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Some governors had given in to the pressure and resigned, while others, including Sankaranarayanan, had dug in their heels and refused to do so.
A communique issued well past Saturday midnight by the Rashtrapati Bhavan stated that the 82-year-old governor had been transferred to Mizoram for the remainder of his term, which ends in 2017. Gujarat Governor Om Prakash Kohli has been asked to discharge his duties, it added.
Incidentally, the transfer order had come barely three days after the state’s top political brass, including Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, boycotted functions attended by the Prime Minister in Nagpur, ostensibly to protest against the heckling of non-BJP chief ministers in the recent past by party activists.