Goa gets retd SPG chief Wanchoo as new Guv
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 29 April 2012 13:47 IST
Former Special Protection Group (SPG) chief and Gandhi family loyalist B V Wanchoo is the new Governor of Goa, the BJP-ruled state.
Though the announcement has been officially made from Rashtrapati Bhavan, a decision in this regard was taken at the meeting of the Congress Core Group, the main decision-making body.
Besides UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the meeting was attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Ms Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel.
The post was vacant for the last seven months, after the term of Dr S S Siddhu came to an end on 6 September.
Maharashtra governor K Sankarnarayanan was holding additional charge of Goa since then.
His fresh term for Maharashtra was also cleared by the core group, besides giving another term to E S L Narasimhan for Andhra Pradesh.
Wanchoo, a 1976 batch IPS officer from the West Bengal cadre, was a joint director with the Intelligence Bureau earlier.
He was picked up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to head the SPG in 2004.
He retired as the head of SPG on October 31 after heading the elite unit for more than seven years.
The core group also decided to appoint former Madhya Pradesh Minister Aziz Qureshi as the Governor of Uttarakhand.
Uttarakhand Governor Margaret Alva would be the new Governor of Rajasthan.
The States that still require new Governors include Kerala, where Karnataka Governor H.R. Bhardwaj is holding additional charge.
Besides, the tenure of the incumbent in Uttar Pradesh and that of the Lt. Governor of Delhi will end shortly.
Sources in the national capital indicate that the names being considered are former Railway Minister C.K. Jaffer Sharief; Indira Gandhi's trusted man R K Dhawan; former Madhya Pradesh Speaker Srinivas Tiwari and former Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee president Phoolchand Mullana.
We do not want these Congress stooges to be governors of Goa. They are useless and only act like spies to the Political Party they belong. Moreover, Goa has to spend Crorers of rupees for their luxury stay at Cabo Raj Bhavan. We should have kept our old Maharajas to do this job. First of all they wouldn't be a liability to the tax payers as they would look after themselves and secondly they would love their land and the people of the state, as they always did; and at the same time they would have carried on with the Constitutional requirement. The nominated governor should thank God and his Luck Star to get this facility in his retirement . Which hard working citizen would ever get this in his life.