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Bharatiya Janata Party veteran and former Rajasthan chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat on Saturday denied that he was to be appointed as the new governor of Tamil Nadu.
Scoffing reports to this effect, Shekhawat said no one from Delhi had approached or consulted him on the matter.
"I am not interested in becoming a governor. I am fine here, fighting the misrule of the Congress government in Rajasthan," he said.
At present, Shekhawat is touring various parts of the desert state rejuvenating the party, which is in the doldrums after its defeat in 1998 assembly elections.
He said he had been inundated with telephone calls from Marwaris settled in Tamil Nadu asking when he would join them in Madras.
A large number of party workers and leaders also made a beeline to his residence in Jaipur on Saturday morning when the reports of his being tipped for the Tamil Nadu governor's post appeared in local newspapers.
Party workers were relieved only after Shekhawat told them that he was not leaving Rajasthan.
The rumors started, Shekhawat believes, with a report in a Hindi paper in Jodhpur, which is patronised by Marwaris in Tamil Nadu. Southern papers picked it up from there.
He brushed aside the contention in the reports that the move had the support of the BJP high command as it would facilitate handing over the reins of the state unit to the younger generation in preparation for future poll battles.
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