In fact, in the recent days, UP Governor is using public platforms to embarrass the UP government, especially the young chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and he is even writing letters to other political leaders airing his views against some of the functioning of the state administration. Naik is openly saying that the CM has failed in maintaining law and order in the state and the common people in Uttar Pradesh are at the mercy of the political hooligans.

With Governor writing frequent letters and openly critical about the government, the ruling Samajwadi Party was forced to bring a resolution in its national conclave last year that the governors should operate within their constitutional limit and should not indulge in politics and function in a partisan manner. As against this, Ram Naik said that his job was to ensure that the state government functions under the constitution and that was what he was doing.

So much so, Governor Ram Naik released the performance report of his three months in the office in which he advised the CM to deal with the l;aw and order situation in the state with more seriousness. Naik is a veteran BJP leader from Maharashtra and he was earlier a Lok Sabha member from Mumbai. He was also a senior minister in the NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Governor Naik wrote several letters to the CM Akhilesh Yadav mentioning that several reports of Lokayukt seeking action against politicians and bureaucrats involved in corruption, especially during Mayawati regime, were pending with the government and no action was being taken against them. Naik also wrote about the appointment of new Lokayukt as the term of Lokayukt N K Mehrotra had expired long ago but the government had not taken any action to fill the post.

Recently the Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his father were embarrassed when the Governor returned to them the list of ten persons to be nominated for the Legislative Council. Both the leaders met the Governor a number of times to seek approval of the list but Naik was not convinced. Rather, income tax raids were conducted in the premises of a prominent SP supporter builder whose name was in the list submitted by the CM.

More recently, the Governor angered the Chief Minister by writing a letter to him regarding the murder of a journalist for exposing the corrupt practices of a senior minister in the Akhilesh cabinet. Governor said that he was not happy at the way the probe was being conducted by the state administration. Earlier also, Naik wrote a letter to the CM regarding Yadav Singh, an engineer at NOIDA who had been involved in massive corruption and income tax raids were conducted against him.

Governor earned the wrath of the controversial UP minister Mohd. Azam Khan when he wrote to the CM to provide police protection to a Congress leader from Rampur who ha\d defended the person who had posted against Azam Khan on social network. Azam Khan reiterated his earlier allegation that the Governor was acting like a political activist working at the behest of BJP and trying to create an environment against the Muslims in the state.

What is significant in the recent days is that the UP Governor has become socially and politically very active. He is meeting more people and listening to their grievances. Most of these grievances are against the state government and naturally, the CM is not at all happy at these interactions of the Governor with common citizens.The state BJP leadership is happy at this discomfiture of the SP and the Government and their leaders are organising delegations to the Governor and giving them publicity to annoy the Chief Minister. (IPA)