Description: Palatable Politics, served fresh.
Flashpoints in Centre-State relations have become increasingly common in India’s politico-administrative setup. While the Indian Constitution envisages a federal setup with a strong Centre, the provisions that inherently guarantee and thereby secure the onus of nurturing federal relations have also become dilatory over time. This has led to an unprecedented rise in vested political interests preceding the interests of national administration and has thus, often been at the expense of deteriorating relations
In the context of India, a gubernatorial position is rather redundant. In fact, the Constituent Assembly had witnessed several debates about the utility of the position. While the President is the Head of State for the entire Indian Republic, the Governor is merely a vestige of the Centre who acts as the constitutional head of the state he is meant to serve. He has no real authority or power, and is in many cases, having lesser powers than the position of the President vis-a-vis his influence on the state.
After a brief hiatus, the role of Governors in the Indian context has once again become a hotly contested issue. Most notably, almost all bitterness with the Raj Bhavans have arose in states ruled by opposition parties. This points to a rather devious undercurrent at play. The image of Governors as being agents of the Centre has been rather difficult to erase, and has only been reinforced with time, opines Rakhahari Chatterji of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Apart from a lone judicial interventio