Mizoram governor sacked

The Centre on Saturday sacked Mizoram Governor Aziz Qureshi, a UPA appointee who had taken the NDA dispensation to the Supreme Court for trying to ease him out.

Qureshi has been sacked within three months of his transfer to the north-eastern state.
Qureshi (75), who was transferred to Mizoram from Uttarakhand and had a tenure until May 2017, became the second governor to be sacked by the Narendra Modi government after Kamla Beniwal.

Incidentally, Beniwal was sacked soon after her transfer to Mizoram while Virendra Kataria, a former Congress leader, was also sacked as Puducherry lieutenant governor last year.

“The President has directed that Dr Aziz Qureshi shall cease to hold the office of the governor of Mizoram and has appointed Keshari Nath Tripathi, governor of West Bengal, to discharge the functions of the governor of Mizoram, in addition to his own duties, until regular arrangements for the office of the governor of Mizoram is made,” a Rashtrapathi Bhavan statement read.

With this, Mizoram got its seventh governor in eight months.

Vakkom Purushottaman and K Sankaranarayanan had resigned soon after their transfer to Mizoram, while V K Duggal and K K Paul had held additional charge.

Qureshi had moved Supreme Court last year against attempts to make him resign from the gubernatorial post. In his petition, Qureshi had claimed that after the NDA government came to power, then home secretary Goswami had called him on July 30 and asked him to tender his resignation or face ouster.