New Delhi. Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has said that if the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led government sends an ordinance to the Raj Bhavan to target him, he will not take a decision on it and will submit it to the President. Will send the pass Khan told reporters in New Delhi on Saturday evening that he had not yet seen and read the ordinance. He will take a decision in this regard only after reading the ordinance. If I am the target, I will not be a judge in my own case. I will not announce it yet. I will look into it and if I come to the conclusion that it is intended to target me, I will not make a decision on it. I will forward (to the President).
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Local Self-Government and Excise MB Rajesh said that the government expects the Governor to act as per the Constitution. Rajesh told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram that the state government, exercising its powers under the Constitution, brought the ordinance and then sent it to the governor. It is legal, constitutional and according to the rules, he said. Now we can only expect that everyone acts according to the constitution.
A Raj Bhavan source said Khan arrived in Delhi on Saturday evening and earlier in the day the Left government in Kerala sent its ordinance to the Raj Bhavan to remove the governor from the post of chancellor of universities in the state.
The Kerala cabinet had on November 9 decided to bring an ordinance amid the ongoing tussle between the Left government with Khan over the functioning of universities, including the appointment of vice-chancellors in the state.
The object of the ordinance is to appoint eminent educationists as the Chancellor of the State Universities in place of the Governor. The decision of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government has been opposed by both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as both parties have alleged that the move is aimed at turning universities in Kerala into ‘communist centres’.
