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Appointment of Alphons as Chandigarh administrator put on hold

Posted in S. Asia

Published on August 19, 2016 with No Comments

Punjab gets new governor

The Modi government  appointed VP Singh Badnore, a former Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan, as the new governor of Punjab but had to put on hold its move to send BJP leader and retired bureaucrat KJ Alphons to Chandigarh as the UT’s administrator, which would have been the first instance in 32 years of the UT getting an administrator different from the Punjab governor.

Badnore, 68, will take over the reins from Haryana governor Kaptan Singh Solanki who was holding additional charge of Punjab for the past 18 months and is also the UT administrator thus. A four-time former MLA, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bhilwara in 2004 and 2009.

While the Punjab governor traditionally has the additional charge of administrator of UT of Chandigarh, his appointment made no mention of it. The Centre had sounded Alphons about the decision to appointment him as Chandigarh administrator instead, reported media from Chandigarh.  However, the move was put off after chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, who heads the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance government in Punjab, lodged his strong protest with Union home minister Rajnath Singh.

Alphons is reported to have confirmed the development to a daily from Chandigarh, saying the Punjab government had raised certain “technical” issues. Badal raised objections after the news of likely appointment of a separate administrator for Chandigarh triggered a political storm in the state where the assembly elections are just five months away.

Chandigarh has been at the centre of long-standing inter-state disputes between Punjab and Haryana. And, the appointment of 63-year-old Alphons, a former IAS officer of the 1979 batch from Kerala, would not only have ended a 32-year practice of the Punjab governor holding additional charge of the UT, but also been a huge setback for the Akalis.

There were angry reactions from the Punjab leaders as soon as Alphons, best known for his demolition drive against illegal encroachments in Delhi, broke the news of his appointment. “I received a call from home minister Rajnath Singh last evening, informing me of the development. I am in Kerala, but will leave for New Delhi soon. The orders are expected to reach me in the evening,” he told a daily.

The opposition Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were quick to denounce the move, calling it a bid to dilute Punjab’s claim on Chandigarh. The chief minister’s office (CMO) first issued a statement asking the centre “not to disturb the time-tested convention and practice of keeping the Governor of Punjab as the Administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh”.

 Meanwhile, in other appointments, former Union minister Najma Heptulla will be the governor of Manipur, while BJP leader Jagdish Mukhi will be the new lieutenant governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Banwarilal Purohit will be the governor of Assam.

 

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