Digvijaya renews demand for Rajya Sabha debate on governors' role

Congress party leader Digvijaya Singh will have to keep his fingers crossed till Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari or his deputy, P J Kurien, decide on whether to allow his substantive motion for a debate on the role of governors in Goa and Manipur.Singh had moved the motion two weeks before. On Friday, he pressed the chair to allow a debate on the role of Mridula Sinha and Najma Heptulla, the governors of Goa and Manipur, respectively, for not inviting the Congress first to form a government despite the party being the single largest in the recently held assembly polls. Singh has alleged the two governors helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form a government by luring smaller parties with financial favours.According to constitutional expert Subhash Kashyap, the role of governors is technically not supposed to be discussed in Parliament but there are exceptions. The chair in this case, he said, had the discretion to decide, in consultation with the government.Singh had earlier .