(4.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Kiran Kumar Reddy has at last managed to get the better of Governor ESL Narasimhan, thanks to constitutional support. Last February, the CM sent a list of eight names for the posts of Information commissioners to the Governor who only gave his nod to four of them and rejected the rest.
His objection was that the four had a political background and against the spirit of a supreme court order that those in active politics should not be appointed as Information Commissioners. But come February Governor had to do the Kiran’s bidding. The ‘political’ commissioners are Imtiaz Ahmed, Vijaya Nirmala, Tantia Kumari and V Venkateswarulu.
• Imtiaz Ahmed contested the 2009 Assembly elections as a Telugu Desam candidate against Kiran Kumar Reddy. Once he lost, he joined the Congress.
• Vijaya Nirmala contested the 2009 elections as a candidate of Praja Rajyam – Chiranjeevi’s party that merged with the Congress.
• Tantia Kumari is the daughter of former deputy CM of Andhra Pradesh, Koneru Ranga Rao .
• Venkateswarulu has been a Youth Congress leader.
Interestingly, Tantiya Kumari is an advocate while Venkateswarulu is a social worker. Imtiaz Ahmed is described as a former senior civil judge, while Vijaya Nirmala is said to be an educationist as per the Kiran Government’s profiling of the candidates.
Since Naidu is on padyatra presently, the CM along with the Deputy Chief minister (the third member of the selection panel) decided to send the file to the Governor again, ignoring the TDP chief’s note and ratifying the earlier selections in a hastily held meeting early this month.
Narasimhan and Kiran share an uncomfortable relationship with the chief minister’s camp not too happy with the Governor’s direct line to the UPA leadership. This is not first time that Narasimhan has returned Kiran’s files.
1. Vice chancellors file – returned thrice
2. Judges file returned three times
3. Padma award file four times
4. Agricultural university VC appointment- twice
5. Cabinet resolution on Minister Dharmana Prasada Rao – returned once
6. RTI appointments