WB governor quits after CBI quizzing

As the NDA government mounted pressure, West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan on Monday resigned from the post, becoming the fourth UPA-appointed Governor to put in his papers.

His resignation came days after he was questioned as a witness by the CBI in the AgustaWestland chopper scam case. With Narayanan’s exit almost seven months before his term ends in January next year, now it may be the turn of Goa Governor B V Wanchoo, who may also be questioned in the chopper case, to resign.

Already three Governors—B L Joshi (Uttar Pradesh), Chhattisgarh (Shekhar Dutt) and Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland)—have quit in the past fortnight and the tenures of H R Bhardwaj (Karnataka) and Devanand Konwar (Tripura) ended last week. The tenures of Jagannath Pahadia (Haryana) and Margaret Alva (Rajasthan) are also ending soon.

While there was no word from the Raj Bhavan or Narayanan, officials in Union Home Ministry and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee confirmed the
reports.