For the last few weeks, everybody has been under the impression that the widening gulf between Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been more or less bridged.
There has been some kind of bonhomie between the two, ever since he took her around the Secretariat and made her inaugurate the temple in the new Secretariat complex.
She also declared at a media interaction that KCR is a seasoned and experienced politician and she has learnt a lot from him.
But on Monday, Tamilisai gave a rude shock to KCR by rejecting his recommendation, nominating two Bharat Rashtra Samithi candidates – Dr Dasoju Sravan and Kurra Satyanarayana as MLCs under the Governor’s quota.
The Governor returned the files to the state government, stating that “politically aligned” persons should be avoided to fill up nominated posts under social service category.
In her letter addressed to the chief minister and also to chief secretary Shanti Kumar, Tamilisai Soundararajan said both the nominees did not fulfil the pre-conditions required under Article 171 (5) of the Constitution of India.
She also claimed that the duo lacked any major achievements to be considered for the posts.
She stated that the reports from neither intelligence nor other agencies indicated that they “do not incur disqualification” under Section 8 to 11 (A) of the Representation of the Peoples Act 1951.
“Avoid such politically aligned persons to fill up nominated posts under Article 171(5) of the Constitution of India, defeating its objective and enactment and consider only genuinely eminent persons in the respective fields,” the letter from the Governor read.
This is not the first time that Soundararajan has rejected the State government’s nominations. Earlier, she rejected the nomination of Padi Kaushik Reddy under the social service category, but the ruling BRS got him elected to the MLC post unanimously under the MLA’s Quota.