VP Singh Badnore, Governor-designate of Punjab, has been appointed as Administrator of Chandigarh, on Thursday.
The Centre on Wednesday had appointed former Rajya Sabha MP and BJP leader VP Singh Badnore as the Punjab Governor.
Initially, former Kerala bureaucrat and now BJP leader KJ Alphons was appointed for the post of administrator, but on Wednesday he said that his appointment is “not going to happen”.
BJP President, Amit Shah had informed Alphons of his appointment as Chandigarh’s first independent administrator with a rank equivalent to that of Lieutenant Governor on 13 August, but four days later he informed him about the cancellation of the same appointment, following concerns raised by SAD.
Very soon it’s going to be election time in Punjab, and since political parties have expressed reservations against me, the appointment is not going to happen. Since I did not get the orders, the question of the order being cancelled does not arise. I will say that my appointment is not coming through.
When Punjab was dealing with a massive insurgency in 1984, the governor of Punjab had taken charge of Chandigarh — a situation that turned into a tradition over three decades.
NDTV reported that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had warned that “Punjab will never allow its legitimate right over the capital and other Punjabi speaking areas to be compromised or diluted.”
Alphons, a hugely popular IAS officer, was also known as “Delhi’s demolition man”. Alphons shot to fame when as Commissioner of the Delhi Development Authority in the 1990s he razed 14,000 unauthorised constructions.
(Source: IANS, NDTV)