Molecular hardness values have been calculated for a few selected diatomics,viz., H-2 HF, N-2, BF, CO, and F-2 in their ground and first excited electronic configurations using 4-31G double zeta type basis functions. The excited electronic configurations are so chosen that they happen to have the lowest energy for a particular symmetry, keeping in mind the validity of the excited state density functional theory for such systems, It is observed for ail the molecules studied that hardness values decrease with electronic excitation. Surface plots of different local quantities like the charge density, the laplacian of the charge density, the quantum potential, the molecular electrostatic potential, and the Fukui function reveal an increase in the molecular reactivity with excitation.