New Delhi, Mar. 28 (PTI): Mizoram Governor Aziz Qureshi, who has had a running feud with the Centre over attempts to get him to quit, and even approached the Supreme Court, was sacked on Saturday.

A brief statement issued by Rashtrapati Bhavan said that “Qureshi shall cease to hold the office of the Governor of Mizoram.”

The Governor of West Bengal, Keshari Nath Tripathi, has been asked to discharge the functions of the Mizoram Governor, in addition to his own duties, until regular arrangements are made, it said.

Tripathi becomes the third person to hold additional charge of Mizoram since July last year, when V.B. Purushothaman resigned rather than move to Nagaland.

Since the Narendra Modi government assumed office last May, Qureshi is the second governor after Kamla Beniwal to be sacked after being transferred to Mizoram. Qureshi had joined in January.

Maharashtra Governor K. Sankaranarayanan, who was also transferred to Mizoram, had tendered his resignation, refusing to take charge of his new assignment.

Qureshi, who was among the governors appointed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, had been told by the then Home Secretary Anil Goswami to quit when the Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party came to power.

But Qureshi, who was then governor of Uttarakhand, moved the Supreme Court against attempts to ease him out.

In his petition, Qureshi, a veteran Congress leader, had claimed that, shortly after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government came to power in May 2014, Goswami had called him and asked him to resign. According to Qureshi, it was made clear to him that he would be removed from office if he did not step down.

He alleged, in his petition, that Goswami again called him on August 8 insisting that he resign.

Goswami had said in his reply to the Supreme Court that he had, with authority and justification, “suggested” to Qureshi that he should consider resigning on his own since his actions were not “behoving the status of the Governor” and showed the constitutional office in “very poor light” apart from “bringing it into disrespect”.

After the new Government took over, many governors appointed by the UPA regime were eased out. Among them was Kamla Beniwal, 87, who had served in Gujarat earlier and had a running battle with Modi when he was the state's chief minister.

Virendra Kataria, a former Congress leader, was sacked as Puducherry lieutenant governor.

Four other governors — M.K. Narayanan (West Bengal), Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland), B.L. Joshi (UP), Shekhar Dutt (Chhattisgarh) and B.V. Wanchoo (Goa) — had put in their papers apparently after they were telephoned by the Union home secretary.