Eye on Lok Sabha: Tamilisai Soundararajan resigns as Governor
Demonstrating her steadfast political allegiance to the Bharatiya Janata Party, Tamilisai Soundararajan resigned from her apolitical role as the Governor of Telangana and Puducherry on Monday.
Hyderabad: Proving that she always had political considerations at heart, that too of the Bharatiya Janata Party, even while being in the apolitical post of a Governor, Tamilisai Soundararajan resigned on Monday as the Governor of Telangana and Puducherry, with strong indications that she would be returning to full-time electoral politics and was most likely to contest to the Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu.
The political move, which proved true the charges of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi that Soundarajan was acting as a political leader despite being in a Constitutional position, came just after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Telangana, during which he had stayed at Raj Bhavan.
“I am happy that I am returning for the service of the people. I thank each and everyone from Telangana. I am the sister of Telangana forever. I thank them for the love and affection,” Soundararajan said before leaving to Chennai after she had sent her resignation to the President of India.
Soundararajan had reached the Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad in September 2019, just three months after she lost the Lok Sabha elections to DMK’s Kanimozhi from Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu. Right from the beginning, there were apparent rifts between the State government and the Governor’s office.
Though Soundararajan insisted that she never had political motives, her actions indicated otherwise, with the stand-off starting from issues of protocol, with the Governor accusing the State government of disrespect. The rift widened with her holding up of bills sent for approval by the State government for months together.
In the garb of studying and seeking opinion, she had held up and rejected several bills, from the Telangana Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of age of superannuation) (Amendment) Bill 2022 to the Telangana State Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and the Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2023, all of which saw even legal battles in the High Court and Supreme Court too.
Her Praja Durbars and delay in approving the TSRTC merger bill too were points of contention, as were her other attempts to undermine the elected government. The latest in a string of controversies that smacked of political shades in the Governor’s actions was when she rejected the State Cabinet’s recommendation nominating Dr Dasoju Sravan and Kurra Satyanarayana to MLC posts under the Governor’s quota.
Politically aligned persons should be avoided to fill up nominated posts, she had said in reply to the government. She had also rejected the nomination of Padi Kaushik Reddy as MLC under the Governor’s quota earlier. Her stance on keeping away politically inclined persons from nominated posts, however, was ironically in stark contrast with her own political background.
Though Soundararajan had denied any political plans in December last, stating that there was no such request made to the BJP leadership, the latest developments reveal that her return to BJP’s electoral politics was always on the cards.
