Karnataka governor H R Bhardwaj created a flutter within the state government and the Bharatiya Janata Party that runs it when he called for removal of corrupt ministers indulging in illegal mining. The governor met the president in Delhi and later told the media that he had already taken up the issue with Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa. "I have told him you have appointed the ministers and you should take action. He says I need time. He doesn't say it is not happening," Mail Today newspaper quoted the governor as having said.

To be sure, the governor is not the first authority to have taken a stand against illegal mining in the state. Karnataka Lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde had exposed the extent of illegal mining in a voluminous report and had recently tendered his resignation because the state government had been blocking his efforts to punish the corrupt in this and other cases.

Interestingly, the BJP is not even attempting to defend the indefensible. It is only saying that the governor has no business to speak up on the issue and to demand the removal of Bellary's Reddy brothers who hold cabinet posts. In other words, it is saying that the highest constitutional authority should not intervene even in cases of blatant violation of public trust placed in members of the government that functions in his name. Not for the first time, the BJP's stand echoes the line taken by the Left Front government in West Bengal which had come under public criticism by then then governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi for its mishandling of the Singur crisis.

The question, therefore, arises, whether governors should stay mum even in cases of gross misgovernance.