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Rajnath Singh meets President, Arunachal guv issue ‘discussed’: Sources
Sacking of a defiant Arunachal Pradesh governor Home minister Rajnath Singh met President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday evening, in the backdrop of a move to sack Arunachal Pradesh governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa.
Home minister Rajnath Singh met President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday evening, in the backdrop of a move to sack Arunachal Pradesh governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa.
Rashtrapati Bhavan sources said that the meeting went for almost half an hour and the Kashmir situation was also discussed. During the meeting, Singh is believed to said that Rajkhowa’s continuance at Raj Bhavan is “untenable”.
The home minister reportedly told the President that the central government has lost confidence in Rajkhowa and the only option left to remove him is to “withdraw the pleasure of the President”.
The home minister’s meeting with the President came after Rajkhowa refused to step down despite a nudge by the Centre to put in his papers after the Supreme Court passed serious strictures against him over the dismissal of the Congress government last year.
However, it is immediately not known what the President told the home minister.
Sources said Rajkhowa’s dismissal may come as early as next evening when the two-day special session of the Arunachal Pradesh assembly, which has been convened to ratify the Goods and Services Tax (GST), gets over.
A defiant Rajkhowa had said he would not step down but was ready to be sacked.
“I want the President to dismiss me. I will not resign. Let the President express his displeasure. Let the government use provisions of Article 156 of the Constitution,” the governor had told a Guwahati-based TV news channel on Monday.
Rajkhowa said he had been asked to resign “on health grounds” weeks after the Supreme Court had restored the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh and censured him.
(With inputs from PTI)
