If there was one underlying theme in all of Narendra Modi’s 437 rallies and 5,827 public events during the Lok Sabha campaign, it was the promise of change.

Exhibit A: “If you give all the 42 Lok Sabha seats to me, I will work towards a real change for Bengal in every aspect.” (February 5, 2014, Kolkata, West Bengal)

Exhibit B:  “You gave Congress sixty years to rule this country…give me sixty months; I will change your life.” (January 24, 2014, Gorakhpur Uttar Pradesh)

Exhibit C: “Please bless me so that I can serve Maa Ganga and bring a change in your lives.” (May 2, 2014, 3-D address)

The above is obviously as exhaustive as my knowledge of sushi. A basic Google search with relevant keywords will establish that Modi – and a host of other senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders – had promised to move away from Congress’ vindictive style of governance and put national interest first instead. Which one would assume would have entailed moving away from Congress’ sycophancy-driven appointment of nominated constitutional positions like governors of states.

A look at the Twitter timeline of Tathagata Roy, part of the BJP National Executive, who was recently appointed governor of Tripura, however, is enough to be sure that nothing of that sort has happened. Your chances of occupying the Raj Bhavan continue to remain directly proportional to your loyalty to the governing party at the Centre just like the good old Congress days.

And make no mistake, this is by no means an isolated case. Ever since the BJP has come into power, 24 states have seen a change in governors. Out of these 24, only six had governors who were finishing their tenure.  At least three – Kamla Beniwal, Virendra Kataria and Aziz Quereshi – were sacked while 10 others resigned. The others were cases of inter-state transfer. One governor died in office.

If you break down the numbers, almost 49 per cent of all our current governors are directly affiliated to the BJP. If you compare the figure to   United Progressive Alliance-II, there is very little that suggest any real “change”. During the last year of UPA-II’s rule, 51 per cent of governors were Congress politicians.

While both the Congress and the BJP have bestowed the position of governor to loyalists as retirement gift in recent times, the potential of misuse of the office of the governor have been pointed out more than a few times.

The first time was back in 1948, when in a Constituent Assembly debate Biswanath Das, a Congress leader, had said:

The Rajamannar Centre-State Relations Inquiry Committee, in 1971, then recommended that the governor “should not be liable to be removed except under proved misbehaviour or incapacity after inquiry by the Supreme Court”.

Following that, the Sarkaria Commission in 1988 observed that “frequent removals and transfers of Governors before the end of their tenure have lowered the prestige of this office”.

More recently in 2010, the Justice Madan Mohan Punchhi Commission on Centre-state relations suggested that the state chief minister had a say in the election of the governor. The committee also recommended that the governor should only be removed by impeachment by the state Assembly.

However, in spite of considerable evidence, which suggests that the office of the governor is being misused to forward political causes – and a compelling need to rectify it – none of the recommendations of any of these reports have ever been taken seriously by any government in power.

If morning does indeed show the day, this government too won’t do anything as far as office of the governor is concerned.  As the Bon Jovi number goes,“…the new improved tomorrow isn’t what it used to be; yesterday keeps comin’ ’round, it’s just reality.”