Chennai: Tamilnadu BJP president Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan and Arif Mohammad Khan, a Cabinet Minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government, were among the five appointed as Governors on Sunday.
While Tamilisai has been given charge of Telangana, Mohammad Khan got Kerala. Kalraj Mishra, Bandaru Dattatreya and Bhagat Singh Koshyari were the other three. Khan, who famously quit from the Union Cabinet and the Congress in 1986 when the Rajiv Gandhi government used the Parliament to set aside the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Shah Bano case, replaces P Sathasivam, the former Chief Justice of India whose five-year term has ended.
Elated on being appointed Telangana Governor, Tamilisai said her father Kumari Ananthan, a Congress veteran, would be happy about her decision to choose the path she wanted to tread (join BJP). Tamilisai, who served as Tamilnadu president of the BJP since 2014, said she would proudly quit the leadership as she was instrumental in taking the party membership to 44.5 lakh in the State.
“I chose BJP despite growing up as daughter of a Congress leader. Biggest challenge in my life was to stay determined about my decision to join BJP and make a mark for myself without any hurdles,” she told reporters.
A doctor by profession, Tamilisai said it was a choice she had to choose between her father’s and her own path. “Today my father will be happy for my decision,” she added.
The 58-year-old leader, who lost the Thoothukudi Lok Sabha seat in the 2019 general elections to DMK’s M Kanimozhi, said she was proud that under her leadership the party membership grew to 44.5 lakh. “I would be quitting as the State party president with that happiness,” she said, vowing to focus on development of Telangana.
Tamilisai’s father Kumari Ananthan is a veteran Congress leader, while her uncle Vasantha Kumar is a Lok Sabha MP (Congress) and a well-known businessman. It seems the Centre has made right choices in choosing five new Governors and Tamilisai’s appointment is the best of the lot, so to speak.