Hours after President Droupadi Murmu accepted resignation of Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit and appointed Gulab Chand Kataria as the new Governor, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said that he would welcome the newly appointed governor and was looking forward to work together for Punjab.
Addressing the media after flagging off 58 new high-tech ambulances from outside his official residence, Mann said that he had called up Kataria in the morning and welcomed him to the state. “I called him in the morning and told him that we are Punjabis and hospitable by nature. He told me that he will take oath on July 31. There are so many issues in which the Governor and the government has to work together. For instance, for appointing vice-chancellors of universities, the Governor and government have to be on the same page. If we work on cross-roads then it seems that parallel government is being run,” he said.
Responding to Purohit’s statement on Friday that he “may have resigned as the CM did not want him to stay,” Mann said, “How can I force a Governor to resign? I have accorded him all respect. He is a buzurg (an elderly man) and I always touched his feet. But when there is a conflict of interest then what can I do? For instance, when I went on two days visit to Jalandhar, as promised by me to the residents of Doaba and Majha, Chief Secretary and DGP were not there. They were with him because he was visiting the border districts. We sought an exemption for them from the Governor, but he insisted that he will need them. How could he run parallel meetings? Before that he had refused to allow budget session. We went to the Supreme Court, even then he decided not to acknowledge our session. President has now changed him,” he said, adding that the government will now prorogue the Budget session of 2024-25. “We had not got it prorogued from him (Purohit). Now, when the new Governor will take over, we will prorogue the session. We will send the file to the Raj Bhawan today.”
