Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 3 (IANS): Hours after he was sworn in as the new Kerala Governor, Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar appeared to have put his foot down when he summoned a very top police official and expressed his displeasure over the way how a few police officers attached to the outgoing Governor Arif Mohammed Khan were transferred.
On Thursday Arlekar was sworn in by Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court Nitin Madhukar Jamdar as the 23rd governor of Kerala at a brief ceremony held at the official residence of the Governor.
Arlekar soon got into the act when a few of the transferred police officers appraised him of their situation. He asked the top police official who is in charge of transfer and postings of personnel to the Raj Bhavan.
After the official left, the transferred police officers were reinstated at the Raj Bhavan.
For several months, the relationship between the Left government led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and outgoing Governor Khan reached rock bottom. It finally ended on a sour note when neither CM Vijayan nor any of his cabinet colleagues bid goodbye to Khan when he left the official residence on Sunday.
However, CM Vijayan cutting short a press conference, rushed to the airport on Wednesday to receive Arlekar when he arrived in the state for the first time to take over as the new Governor.
Arlekar before departing from his home state Goa, paid a quick visit to the residence of Goa Governor P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, who hails from Kerala. Commenting on his new position, Arlekar said, “My job is to assist the Kerala government, and I am not going for any confrontation. I have always adopted such a position. My visit to the Goa Governor was to understand things.”
The first major job for Arlekar is to read out the mandatory Governor’s address to the 140-member Kerala Legislative Assembly later this month, done on the first day of the first session in the new calendar year.
Meanwhile, Arif Mohammad Khan took the oath as Bihar's 42nd Governor on Thursday at Rajendra Mandapam, Raj Bhavan.