The ongoing tussle between Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and State Governor Banwarilal Purohit seems like an unending one. In the past few months, the two have locked horns over several issues and the spats in the form of exchange of letters, tweets, bytes in the media and the use of unparliamentary language have all happened in the public domain. Both have been accusing each other of “not fulfilling constitutional duties”.
The governor recently accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of acting against the Constitution and not responding to his letters. “Not even a single reply to my 10 letters has been given, they (the government) are acting against the Constitution,” said Purohit reminding Mann of the direction the Supreme Court had issued recently. He said the apex court had clearly stated that it was “101 per cent obligatory” for the Chief Minister to respond to the Governor’s queries. Whenever I sought any information, the Chief Minister told me that he was only answerable to three crore Punjabis,” Purohit claimed.
The clashes between the Governor and chief minister are not just limited to the issue of when to convene Assembly sessions, but also on matters like the manner in which state’s affairs are being run, appointments to various institutions, including universities, and whether he (Governor) should address the government as “my government” in the House.
The Punjab government had to move to the Supreme Court to request the Governor to act on the state cabinet's decision of calling for the Budget session to which the Governor had been reluctant. The Apex court also told both sides that constitutional discourse has to be conducted with a sense of ‘decorum and mature statesmanship’.
Stressing that the Governor and the Chief Minister are constitutional functionaries with specified roles and obligations earmarked by the Constitution, the SC made critical observation stating that there was a dereliction of constitutional duty by both.
“Not furnishing the information sought by the Governor will be a dereliction of the Chief Minister's constitutional duty which also allows the Governor to not do his constitutional duty to summon the Budget session,” the court remarked. Talking about the Governor, the court said that there was no occasion for the Punjab Governor to seek legal advice on whether to convene a Budget session as he was bound by the aid and advice of ministers. Earlier to this, the governor had taken a stand that he was in no hurry to summon the Assembly's Budget session, putting forward a point that it was obligatory for the Chief Minister to reply to the letters written by the Raj Bhawan.
One of the letters was related to the selection of 36 government school principals for a training seminar in Singapore. Though Mann did reply to the letter later, the Governor maintained that response was “patently unconstitutional and extremely derogatory”. He threatened to take legal action.
Mann took to social media and tweeted that he was not accountable to the Governor but only to three crore Punjabis.
The matter did not end there. The Governor held a press conference accusing the AAP government of corruption and inability to fight the drug mafia and the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, particularly in the jails, turning centres for the criminals to plan and commit crimes.
Purohit has also raised the pitch against a cabinet minister, Lal Chand Kataruchak, and asked Mann to sack the minister in view of complaints received relating to him in the light of the sexual misconduct.
A fortnight back, a miffed Governor declared that he will not use the state helicopter in view of insulting remarks that Mann made against him in the state assembly on his travelling to the border district using the state government chopper.
The next issue of contention between the Chief Minister and Governor would be bills passed by the state Assembly which include Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Bill, 2023 enabling free
telecast of Gurbani from the Golden Temple in Amritsar and the bill to replace the Governor with the Chief Minister as the chancellor of state-run universities.
