Legislative council nominations: Governor Ram Naik refuses to toe UP government line, again

LUCKNOW: Governor Ram Naik and the state government seem to be headed for a face-off over the nomination of Legislative Council members. Barely disguising his disagreement with the names proposed by the state government for MLCs, the Governor said on Wednesday that the Constitution needs to be followed in both letter and spirit.

He made clear that traditional practice of clearing all names proposed by the CM would not be followed blindly and precedence would be given to rules and constitutional provisions.

Naik, who completed a year in office on Wednesday, said, “tradition was that names were sent of those to be nominated to the Vidhan Parishad and they used to be cleared the very next day by the Raj Bhawan. But tradition cannot bypass rules and constitutional provisions, which are paramount.

Also the nominated category for MLCs is for persons who have shown exemplary contribution to arts, literature, social work, cooperatives etc. I have received many complaints against the names proposed and have sought clarifications.”