Policemen at Tekhali Bazar to protect CPM workers who have returned home. Telegraph picture

New Delhi, Nov. 9: Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi acted within his constitutional rights in warning the state government over Nandigram, constitutional experts said.

“It is within his constitutional discretion to warn, advise and encourage the state government,” T.R. Andhyarujina said. “He would be failing in his duty if he didn’t do so.”

Gandhi tonight described as “unlawful and unacceptable” the manner of the (CPM’s) recapture of Nandigram villages and called the area a “war zone”.

“They (the state) can’t have him removed,” Andhyarujina said. “They will only try and build political pressure to stop him from speaking out.”

Under the Constitution, a governor can only be removed by the President. But Gandhi, too, can send a report about the Nandigram situation to the President, Andhyarujina said. A governor is constitutionally bound to send periodic reports about the situation in his state to the President.

The President often uses such reports to decide on recommendations for central rule in a state. The President, of course, can take his decision even without a governor’s report. “That (a recommendation for President’s rule), however, seems a long shot,” Andhyarujina said.

He added that a governor was not a rubber-stamp. “A person of Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s stature is not going to be a pawn. He will discharge his constitutional duties.”

Andhyarujina’s views are echoed in Subhash C. Kashyap’s book, Framing of India’s Constitution.

Kashyap says the framers of the Constitution had certain responsibilities for the governor in mind. These included “prevention of grave menace to peace and tranquillity of the province or any part of the province or for safeguarding the legitimate interests of the minorities”.

Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, speaking at the drafting committee of the Constituent Assembly, had said: “…(The governor) is expected to be a person who was likely to act as a friend and a mediator of the cabinet.”

Gandhi had earlier written to Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer on November 4, replying to the former Supreme Court judge’s letter of October 31 that had expressed concern over Nandigram.

“…But feel it my duty to request you… to consider what measures, if any, may be taken to see that the people of the state, particularly of Nandigram, enjoy security and liberty,” wrote Iyer, who was a minister in India’s first communist government, led by E.M.S. Namboodiripad in Kerala, in 1957. Iyer was a candidate for President in 1987 but lost the election to the Congress-backed R. Venkataraman.

Gandhi wrote back: “…The continuing violence and counter-violence there have caused me… great anxiety and sorrow. I shared with the people of the state some questions that I was posing to the state government, immediately after the tragic event of March 14. Not long thereafter, the Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal announced that the petrochemical hub being planned for Nandigram would not be sited there…. That should really have brought the main tension to an end…..

“An abatement in the tension and violence has, however, remained tragically elusive, with the making and hurling of ‘hand-bombs’, resultant deaths, displacement of people from homes, disruption of livelihood and school schedules continuing.

“Let me assure you that my attention to the issue will remain continuous and intense. The attention of any governor to such an issue would.”