New Delhi

May 16, 2004

KHURANA TO RESIGN, OTHER GOVERNORS TO FOLLOW

Rajasthan Governor Madanlal Khurana, the last to be kicked out of active politics to Raj Bhawan, will be the first to resign and return to Delhi to take charge of revamping the Bhartiya Janata Party in the capital. The BJP leadership is understood to have given a green signal to resign following a high-level meeting of party chief M Venkaiah Naidu and Deputy
Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Saturday.

Sources said Khurana would step down in a day or two after winding up pending work in the Raj Bhawan.Some other Governors are likely to follow suit in view of the change of government at the Centre.

Khurana was quite reluctant in accepting the Governor's post but the BJP decided to move him out of Delhi politics in view of the party failing miserably under his leadership to capture the Delhi Assembly from Congress. The leadership has realised the "blunder" in removing him from Delhi scene only after the BJP lost six of the seven seats in the capital, the sources said. The party had swept all seven seats in 1999.

The Governors are political appointees of the Government in the Centre and hence it becomes imperative for them to bow out of office instead of the new government asking them to resign, the BJP sources said.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi's aides have been keeping track of politicking by the BJP leaders occupying Raj Bhawans and as such the new government headed by Sonia Gandhi would certainly remove the Governors having Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background, AICC sources
affirmed.

Gujarat Governor Kailashpati Mishra and Haryana Governor Babu Parmanand, who openly canvassed for votes for the BJP, top the list of the Governors to be shunted out. Other Governors on the exit list are: Goa's Kidarnath Sahani,
UP's Vishnu Kant Shastri and Bihar's Rama Jois, Himachal's V S Kokje and Maharashtra's Mohamed Fazal.

Also to go is Delhi's Lt Governor Vijay Kapoor, a retired Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir, who had identified himself with the BJP and who was looking for an extension from Vajpayee government.

Karnataka Governor T N Chaturvedi, who was a BJP member in the Rajya Sabha before going to the Raj Bhawan and before that the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, and Andhra Pradesh Governor Surjit Singh Barnala may be
among the few political appointees of the Vajpayee government who maycontinue in their posts.