14 Raj Bhavans will fall vacant

Fourteen Raj Bhavans will fall vacant by December this year. Four of these — Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura and Puducherry — will be in June itself, reports Political Bureau.

Fourteen Raj Bhavans will fall vacant by December this year. Four of these — Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura and Puducherry — will be in June itself.

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While Raghunandan Lal Bhatia (Bihar), Balram Jakhar (Madhya Pradesh) and D N Sahay (Tripura) will complete their five year term this month, Puducherry Lt Governor Govind Singh Gujar had died in April. Of the four, Sahay had been handpicked as governor by the BJP-led NDA government.

Will the Congress use the opportunity to accommodate some senior leaders who are no longer part of the new government? The list includes veterans like Arjun Singh, Shivraj Patil, Sis Ram Ola and Hans Raj Bhardwaj. ``The appointments will be a mix of politicians and former bureaucrats,’’ said a Congress source.

This applies to the 10 other vacancies coming up by yea-end: Gujarat (Nawal Kishore Sharma), Uttar Pradesh (T V Rajeswar), Haryana (A R Kidwai), Goa (S S Sidhu), Punjab and Chandigarh (S F Rodrigues), Tamil Nadu (S S Barnala), West Bengal (Gopalkrishna Gandhi), Kerala (R S Gavai), Jharkhand (Syed Sibte Razi) and Karnataka (Rameshwar Thakur).

Among the names doing the rounds for governorship include Margaret Alva, Jaffer Sharief (both from Karnataka), Mahavir Prasad (UP), Virendra Kataria (Punjab), J B Patnaik (Orissa), P R Kyndiah (Meghalaya) and Madhukar Gupta (who retires as home secretary on June 30). There is also speculation that former Union Minister Kyndiah may be sent to Goa and Gupta to Tripura.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take a final decision on the political appointments after consulting Congress president Sonia Gandhi.