Agartala, Mar 12 (IANS): The Tripura government Tuesday denounced the central government for unilaterally appointing Devanand Konwar as the new governor of the state.

"The unilateral appointment of governor to a state is undesirable," Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said.

"The union home ministry did not follow the traditional practice of consultation with the state government before appointing the governor," he said.

While appointing new governors of Kerala, Bihar, Nagaland, Odisha and Tripura, President Pranab Mukherjee Saturday transferred Tripura Governor D.Y. Patil to Bihar and Bihar's Governor Konwar to Tripura.

A visibly annoyed Sarkar said: "When Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde called me last week that Konwar will be the Tripura governor, I requested him not to do that.

"But despite my reservation about the unilateral appointment, the union home ministry has asked the Tripura Resident Commissioner in Delhi to collect the papers from the Rashtrapati Bhavan regarding the appointment of the new governor."

Sarkar said he again spoke to Shinde and told him that the state had no issues with the incumbent governor. "So what is the necessity to change the governor abruptly?

"On earlier occasions, the (central government) sent a panel of names. We either choose a name or raised our aversion or objection about some names. Then centre sent fresh names. This was the practice. This time, the centre breaks all normal procedures," Sarkar said.