Shanmuganathan resignation accepted over Ladies Club affair

New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee has accepted V Shanmughanathan's resignation from the post of Governor, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, after his removal was demanded by employees alleging he had turned the Raj Bhawan into a Young Ladies Club.

A day after Shanmuganathan decided to step down as Governor of Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, President Pranab Mukherjee, accepting his resignation, gave Assam Governor, Banwarilal Purohit additional charge of Meghalaya. On Wednesday, 80 employees of the Shillong Raj Bhavan wrote to the President and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his removal.

The employees alleged that veteran RSS leader Shanmuganathan, 68, hurt the decorum and prestige of the Raj Bhavan by turning it in to an “young ladies club”. Shanmuganathan, however, denied the charges. On Thursday, he reportedly asked his assistant in Shillong to pack his personal belongings and files and send them to Guwahati. Shanmuganathan, who also holds charge as Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, was in Itanagar to take part in the Republic Day celebrations.

His “activities”, the letter sent to the PMO alleged, “seriously compromised the dignity” of Raj Bhavan, converting it into a “young ladies’ club”, causing “severe humiliation, mental stress and torture” to employees, shunting out other employees and bringing in “only the young girls”. The letter alleged that “two public relations officers, a cook and a nurse… all of whom are women” had been appointed on “night duty” at the Raj Bhavan.

On Thursday, two civil society groups — Civil Society Women Organisation (CSWO) and Thma u Rangli (TUR) — conducted a signature campaign and staged a demonstration outside the Shillong Raj Bhavan, demanding immediate removal of the Governor.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said he was waiting for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Home Ministry to take a call on the Governor. “We will wait for their call (on the complaint),” Sangma said.

A post-graduate and an MPhil in Political Science, V Shanmuganathan received the Madras University’s prestigious Gold Medal from its well-known Vice Chancellor T P Meenakshi Sundarnar in 1970.

Shanmuganathan succeeded Keshari Nath Tripathi as Governor of Meghalaya on 12 May 2015. On 30 September 2015 he was additionally sworn in as the 17th Governor of Manipur after the death in office of Syed Ahmed.

The 67-year-old was first accused of sexually harassing a woman who had gone to him for the post of Public Relations Officer and then of only hiring or posting women in his staff and turning the Raj Bhavan into a place where "young ladies come and go at will with direct orders from the governor". Protests by civil society groups flared up the roads of Shillong on 26 January 2017 when Republic Day was being celebrated. The same day he resigned from his position in both Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh after several employees of Raj Bhawan wrote a letter to the President of India that Shanmuganathan had compromised the security of the place with some women being given access to his bedroom.