Governor N N Vhora known for his politico-administrative wisdom in less than a week took a U-turn on the working of Mehbooba led PDP-BJP coalition government as he barely few days after owning the actions of the incumbent government during his customary address to the joint session of legislature in categorical terms advised Chief Minister in full public glare to ‘perk up’ the performance of her government during his address to an official function organization in connection with the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed memorial lecture at Zorawar Singh Stadium Jammu. Since the people stand that appreciation of the government by the governor during his address (drafted by the state cabinet as per precedence) to the joint session of the state legislature was his constitutional duty which he performed on January 2 but few days later Governor Vohra spoke about the performance of the government of the basis of his own judgment of the actions of Mehbooba Mufti led PDP-BJP coalition ministry. Just as the governor’s constitutional duty is to read out the script of his address to the joint session of state legislature word by word as drafted by the state cabinet, similarly he is duty bound to convey his own judgment about the actions of the government to the central government. So governor has fulfilled the constitutional duty of reading out the script of his address to the joint session of the state legislature as drafted by the state cabinet but he has not performed the duty of conveying the central government his own judgment about the performance of incumbent government.
Governor declaring a popular government a non performing regime in his routine communication to the central government as mandated by constitution won’t be as damage as is the pronouncement of the governor about the non performance of the government in full public glare at an official function in presence of the Chief Minister. Overtly and covertly the governor has sent out a message to the people within and outside the Jammu & Kashmir state that he does endorse the decisions and actions of the incumbent government and interestingly the governor’s views about the performance of the government deserve the attention of the central government keeping in view the current security and political scenario in the state. What matters the most is that governor Vohra is as comfortable with the incumbent Modi government at the centre as he was with the previous Manmohan Singh government and so no questions about the neutrality of the governor can’t be asked by those ideologically opposed to Vohra. Now the point of public attraction would be the response of the central government to the controversial observations of the governor about the working of the Mehbooba government.