With “personal reasons,” Banwarilal Purohit resigned from his position as governor of Punjab on Saturday. The position had been occupied by him since August 2021.
The resignation was made one day after Purohit visited Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister, on Friday in Delhi.
“I hereby submit my resignation from the position of Governor of Punjab and Administrator of Union Territory, Chandigarh, citing personal reasons and other obligations.” Purohit wrote to President Droupadi Murmu in his resignation letter, “Please accept the same and oblige.”
Rajeev Verma, an AGMUT cadre officer, was appointed Union Territory Adviser by the Ministry of Home Affairs earlier this week. The position was unfilled the previous year.
In addition to serving as the governor of Tamil Nadu in 2016, Purohit, a three-time MP from Nagpur (twice from the Congress and once from the BJP), was named governor of Assam in 2017.
He had been in a verbal spat with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government that was in power in Punjab for a long time. He had written to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on a number of occasions, requesting clarification on various matters. He had even threatened to recommend President’s rule in the state and start legal action if Mann had not responded to his questions.
Remarkably, the resignation follows the Chandigarh mayoral elections, in which the AAP contested results alleging manipulation and petitioned the Supreme Court for a prompt ruling on its case. The party filed a petition in the supreme court after the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered Chandigarh to respond to a case made by AAP councillor Kuldeep Kumar, who was a contestant and contested the victory of the BJP’s Manoj Sonkar, within three weeks.