Kerala Governor Sheila Dikshit meets Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi
Sheila Dikshit's itinerary in Delhi today furthered the notion that she is likely to quit soon as Governor of Kerala. Ms Dikshit, 76, met with Home Minister Rajnath Singh and then President Pranab Mukherjee.
If she quits office, Ms Dikshit will give the government what it has been looking for. Since taking office in May, the new administration has made it clear that it wants to replace governors who were appointed by the previous government with nominees of its own.
The original "hit-list" of about a dozen governors has been whittled down over the last few months, with five of those shortlisted quitting office - the last resignation came from K Sankaranarayanan who quit as Maharashtra Governor yesterday after being told he was being transferred to Mizoram by the government .
Ms Dikshit is among the governors who have refused to acquiesce. So is Aziz Qureshi, the Governor of Uttarakhand, who has taken the Centre to the Supreme Court, alleging that only the President of the country can demand his removal.
(Challenged in Court By a Governor, Centre Denies Trying to Sack Him)If Ms Dikshit truncates her term as Kerala Governor, she could be back in Delhi where there is talk of an election after over six months of President's rule. In December, Ms Dikshit sought a fourth consecutive term as Delhi Chief Minister; her party, the Congress, placed a dismal third after 15 years of running the capital. Ms Dikshit was then posted to Kerala by the union government in March. Political opponents said Ms Dikshit had been made Governor to entitle her to immunity from an investigation into alleged corruption in the Commonwealth Games which were held in Delhi on her watch in 2010.
The Congress and other opposition parties say that the government's mass ejection of governors is a blatant violation of a Supreme Court order from 2010 that says governors cannot be removed if the government at the Centre changes.
Last month, the government sacked Kamla Beniwal as Governor of Mizoram just a month after transferring her there from Gujarat, where she had shared a fractious relationship with Narendra Modi while he was Chief Minister.