Published: February 3, 2024 5:34 PM IST 
Punjab News: Amidst the backdrop of the row over Chandigarh mayoral polls, Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator Banwarilal Purohit tendered his resignation Saturday, citing “personal reasons” and other commitments.
“Due to my personal reasons and certain other commitments, I tender my resignation from the post of governor of Punjab and Administrator, Union Territory, Chandigarh. Please accept the same and oblige,” Purohit wrote in his resignation letter addressed to President Droupadi Murmu.
Notably, Purohit’s resignation came day after his meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi.
Purohit had been at loggerheads with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann over several issues, including holding the Assembly sessions and appointments of vice-chancellors. The former governor had also taken exception to Mann calling his official letters “love letters.”
Purohit– a three-time Lok Sabha member from Nagpur in 1984, 1989 and 1996– was appointed as Punjab governor and Chandigarh administrator in August 2021.
Earlier, Purohit had also served as the governor of Assam from 2016 to 2017 and the governor of Tamil Nadu from 2017 to 2021.
Purohit’s meeting with Shah came days after the BJP swept the Chandigarh mayoral polls, retaining all three posts amidst allegations of ballot paper “tampering” by the presiding officer levelled by the Congress-AAP alliance in the Union Territory.
BJP retained all three posts in the Chandigarh mayoral elections.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had doubled down on its allegations and moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking fresh polls under the supervision of a retired judge of the court. However, on Wednesday, a division bench of High Court denied interim relief to the Arvind Kejriwal-led party.
Kejriwal on Friday had launched a scathing attack against the BJP, alleging that the “world’s biggest party was caught on camera stealing votes”.
“If they (BJP) can “rig” the Chandigarh mayoral polls, they could go to any extent in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections,” the Delhi Chief Minister said.
Addressing AAP leaders and workers at a protest at the party’s office in Delhi, Kejriwal said, “In the last few years, we had heard that the BJP rigs polls, tampers with EVMs and gets names of voters deleted from the voter lists but never was any evidence found. They were caught red-handed in Chandigarh stealing votes.”
“If they can indulge in such irregularities in the Chandigarh mayoral polls, what would they be doing in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections. They can sell the country for power but we will not allow them to do it. We have to save democracy and the country,” he said.
He also raised the slogan of “Gali gali mein shor hai, BJP vote chor hai”.
On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to consider an AAP councillor’s request seeking urgent hearing of his plea challenging the high court order.
(With PTI inputs)
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