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Centre's order forces WB governor to quit

West Bengal Governor A R Kidwai today tendered his resignation after he was asked by the Union home ministry to do so.

Kidwai, now in Darjeeling, his summer office, has faxed his resignation to President K R Narayanan, official sources said.

He is returning to Calcutta by air after cancelling all his programmes in the hill town, the sources said.

Kidwai was asked to resign by the Union home ministry yesterday, according to a report appearing in the Communist Party of India-Marxist newspaper Ganashakti.

It said the secretary to the governor had requested the home ministry to keep the order in abeyance for a month saying that Chief Minister Jyoti Basu would leave for London today.

The newspaper said the home ministry had not contacted Basu regarding its order to the governor.

''I have not been informed by the Centre. The minority caretaker government has been throwing all rules and regulations to the winds,'' the newspaper quoted Basu as saying.

Kidwai took over as the state governor on April 27, 1998.

Before taking up this assignment, he was the governor of Bihar.

Meanwhile Governor A R Kidwai's removal has triggered protests from various quarters.

The Congress asked the caretaker government to desist from removing governors and reshuffle senior officials. ''A caretaker government has no authority to appoint ambassadors or governors and to reshuffle senior officials,'' AICC general secretary Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in Delhi.

Mukherjee said the government had done just the opposite of what had been stated in the BJP's election manifesto of 1998 in the case of governors. The manifesto said the misuse of Raj Bhavan for political purposes should be prevented and that by often becoming an extension counter of the Centre the governor's office was losing its sanctity.

The Congress was deeply constrained of the fact that of the two governors removed one belonged to a minority community and the other to the scheduled caste, he added

Jyoti Basu congratulated Kidwai for having played a ''commendable'' role in discharging his duties during a short period. ''We are pained at the way the governor has had to leave his office amid bitterness at the directive of the Centre,'' Basu added.

UNI

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