Tamilisai may join list of Governors who vacated Raj Bhavans for political stints: Here are a few

Now, she has quit the governorship in a purported bid to plunge into electoral politics again. In doing so, she will join a small group of people who have given up gubernatorial office to pursue electoral politics.

Also read: Tamilisai quits as governor

In the footsteps of Rajasekharan?

The latest example before Tamilisai is BJP leader Kummanam Rajasekharan. In 2018, he was appointed the Governor of Mizoram. He quit office on 8 March the following year and contested the general elections from Thiruvananthapuram.

The BJP fielded him against Shashi Tharoor of Congress. The latter won with a majority of 99,989 votes, polling 4,16,131 votes to Rajasekharan’s 3,16,142 votes.

His second attempt at winning an election, as the BJP candidate from the Nemom Assembly constituency in Kerala in 2021, also ended in defeat.

The other Governor who took a similar route is Babyrani Maurya. The former Agra Mayor became Governor of Uttarakhand in August 2018. She was the second woman to hold that post after Margaret Alva in 2009.

Maurya quit the post in September 2021, two years before completing her term as governor. A few days later, she was appointed National Vice President of BJP, with assembly elections in her home state of Uttar Pradesh due in a few months.

She successfully contested from the Agra Rural constituency in the 2022 elections and was appointed minister in the second Yogi Adityanath government in March 2022.

One case of a former Governor entering Parliament is Swaraj Kaushal, the husband of the late Sushma Swaraj, BJP leader and former minister. Incidentally, their daughter, Bansuri, is the BJP’s candidate for the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat in 2024.

Swaraj Kaushal was Governor Mizoram from 1990 to 1993. After his term ended, he entered politics. Between 1998-1999 and 2000-2004, the well-known criminal lawyer represented the Haryana Vikas Party in the Rajya Sabha.

A prominent Congress leader from Maharashtra and an influential Congress Working Committee member, Sushil Kumar Shinde, has a unique record. He was chief minister of Maharashtra when certain events caused him to shift to Andhra Pradesh as Governor in 2004.

Two years later, he quit to become the Union home minister. In 2009, the Congress gave him the Lok Sabha ticket from Solapur, and he won the election.

Joginder Jaswant Singh has a unique distinction in Indian politics. He was the 21st chief of the Indian army, serving between 2005 and 2007. The following year, after he retired from service, he was sent to Arunachal Pradesh as Governor.

He completed his five-year stint between 2008-2013. He decided to enter politics after that and joined the Shiromani Akali Dal. In 2017, he contested as its candidate, facing former Punjab chief minister, Captain Amarinder Singh, of Congress, from the Patiala Urban Assembly seat. He lost badly, getting over 11,000 votes against Captain’s 72,000 plus.