Why the post of governors should be abolished

Every nation spends a lot on pomp and show, to celebrate itself. So, the tanks and the tableaux rolling down Rajpath on January 26 is a hair-raising experience for many. But should the tax-payer subsidise geriatric fantasies of manipulative have-beens parked at Raj Bhawans in state capitals, merely to let them hoist the national flag on January 26? The office of the governor should have been abolished five years ago when a governor was caught on camera with three women all over him satiating the 83-yearold sex addict's sick mind. That was the right moment to strike at the roots of the gubernatorial humbug. Then, the UPA government itself was struck by a strange kind of paralysis, stopping it from governing, let alone doing a radical overhaul.
Narendra Modi sought and got a mandate to cut the rotten flab and the make the State young, energetic and functional. Instead, the NDA government is going down the same slimy path of political shenanigans.

Despite a Supreme Court order restraining the former Congress-led government from removing governors without reason, the Modi government is said to have asked the governors to move out of their plush old age homes. But, for what? Of course, to accommodate NDA's unemployable leaders well past their sell-by-date.

Politics, like every other enterprise, accumulates a lot of people not really needed to run it. However much the power-hungry politicians disagree, ageing and death are the only two certainties in life even for politicians. The post of governors in state capitals is, thus, a convenient retirement sinecure for unemployable (and often cantankerous) politicians, who need to feel important.

Our contemporary history is full of instances of high-handed governors, appointed by a strong Union government, turning against popular leaders in the state. Congressman Ram Lal has managed to remain a footnote of history by dismissing the NT Rama Rao government and installing Nadendla Bhaskar Rao as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh for 31 days in August-September 1984.

That was the beginning of the end of governors meddling with elected governments of the Opposition. Sure, in 1997, Romesh Bhandari too tried to ease Kalyan Singh out of the government and install Jagdambika Pal as CM. But the court's intervention, intense media scrutiny and the political legitimacy of the Opposition gradually clipped the wings of political vultures in Raj Bhawans.

Till 1967, when most of the country was ruled by Congress, the governor, usually an import from Delhi, acted as a parallel power centre and was used by the 'high command' to rein in the more popular local leader. Now, with the rise in regional forces, no governor can afford to disturb the federal structure or the independence of state governments.

Now, the colonial-era Raj Bhawans have only ceremonial functions like receiving the letter of the winner staking claim to form the government or swearing her in as CM. In times of political crisis, the Raj Bhawan becomes a venue to parade political horses, recently bought or sold. But in such crises too the governor's role is limited to ordering a floor test of the relative strength of the parties in the assembly, which is actually done by the Speaker.

Most of these functions can be done by the Chief Justices of the High Courts, who in any case swear in governors. The Speakers can read out the “governors' address to the assembly”, which is the government's declaration of intent and has nothing to do with the governor.

So, the best course of action for the Modi government is to dump governors, declare those beautiful old Raj Bhawans as heritage museums or resorts and save a lot of money by way of salaries, perks and “entertainment” expenses of doddering oldies who can do nothing in office.

And let a really worthy, venerated, senior citizen, a teacher, a technocrat, a poet, a philosopher hoist the national flag in state capitals on January 26