Government to appoint Governors soon, says Rajnath Singh

New Delhi: Government will soon appoint a number of Governors to fill up the vacancies in various Raj Bhavans, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today.

"We will very soon appoint some Governors," he told reporters here.

Singh, however, refused to comment on whether the appointments would come before the Budget session of Parliament beginning July 7.

"I cannot say whether the Governors will be appointed before or after the Parliament session," he said.

Following the new NDA government's pressure, four Governors have already resigned. They are B L Joshi (Uttar Pradesh), M K Narayanan (West Bengal), Shekhar Dutt (Chhattisgarh) and Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland).

Two Governors - H R Bhardwaj (Karnataka) and Devanand Konwar retired late last month.

However, a few other Governors appointed by the previous UPA regime continue to remain in office. They include K Sankaranarayanan (Maharashtra), Sheila Dikshit (Kerala), Jaganath Pahadia (Haryana), Kamala Beniwal (Gujarat), Shivraj V Patil (Punjab), B V Wanchoo (Goa) besides others.

The sources said that the government was considering appointing some BJP veterans as Governors.

The names doing the round include Former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, former UP Assembly Speaker Keshri Nath Tripathi, former Union Minister Ram Naik, former Lucknow MP Lalji Tandon, former Bhopal MP Kailash Joshi, BJP leader from Kerala O Rajagopal besides others.