President appoints five new governors

President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday appointed five new governors for Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Meghalaya. Among those who have been appointed include two people who have served in the armed forces.

After the latest round of appointments, apart from Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, all the vacancies of governors have been filled. While Gujarat governor O.P. Kohli is handling the additional charge of MP, Andhra Pradesh governor E.S.L. Narasimhan is looking after Telangana.

Narasimhan was appointed by the previous UPA government

and he, along with N.N. Vohra of Jammu and Kashmir, Shriniwas Patil of Sikkim and S.C. Jamir of Odisha, is among the four governors who continue to hold their positions despite a change in regime at the Centre. Senior BJP leader and the current governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jagdish Mukhi has been “promoted and has been asked to take charge of the strategically important and much bigger state of Assam. Jagdish Mukhi is the fifth Delhi politician to be made governor after Sikander Bakht, Jagmohan, Madan Lal Khurana and Sheila Dikshit. Three former Police Commissioners have also held the position: Ved Marwah, Nikhil Kumar and currently Dr K.K. Paul. In addition, Kiran Bedi is Lt. Govenor of Pondicherry. Mukhi has been replaced by Devendra Kumar Joshi, a decorated Admiral of the Navy. The 63-year-old Joshi served as the Chief of Naval Staff from 31 August 2012 to 26 February 2014. From 1996-99, he held the position of Defence Adviser at the Indian High Commission in Singapore. He has also led the Vizag-based Eastern Navy Fleet. Similarly, the 78-year-old Brigadier (Dr) B.D. Mishra (retd), has been appointed as the governor of Arunachal Pradesh. Mishra, who served as a commander of the National Security Guards, has a rich experience of taking part and leading operations in armed conflicts. He played a key role in the successful rescue operation during the Indian Airlines plane hijack in Amritsar almost 24 years ago. He is also a war veteran of China war of 1962 and LTTE operations in Sri Lanka in 1987-88.

Mishra would be succeeding Padmanabha Acharya, who is also the governor of Nagaland. Acharya was given the additional charge of Arunachal Pradesh after the former governor V. Shanmuganathan was removed from the post following allegations of sexual misconduct. An alumnus of Allahabad University and Madras University from where he obtained his M.A. and M.Sc degrees respectively, Mishra has also done Ph.D from Gwalior’s Jiwaji University. Banwarilal Purohit, who was replaced by Jagish Mukhi, has been made the governor of Tamil Nadu. Purhoit, a three-time MP from Nagpur, will be replacing Ch. Vidyasagar Rao. The 77-year-old Purohit is currently the managing editor of English daily Hitavada, which was founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1911. Purohit and company took the ownership of the newspaper from former Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla in 1978.

Former MP from Aligarh and BJP’s national vice-president, Satya Pal Malik, has been appointed as the governor of Bihar, a post that had fallen vacant after Ram Nath Kovind was nominated as the BJP’s presidential candidate in June. West Bengal governor Keshari Nath Tripathi had then been given the additional charge of Bihar. Malik, 71, has served as the Union Minister of State, Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism, and has held many important positions in Central and state governments. He was also a Rajya Sabha MP for two terms and a Lok Sabha MP from 1989 to 1990. Malik was also a member of Uttar Pradesh Assembly from 1974 to 1977. Similarly, Bihar-based veteran BJP leader, Ganga Prasad Chaurasiya, has been made the governor of Meghalaya. His son, Sanjeev Chaurasiya is a BJP MLA from Digha constituency of Patna. Prasad was an MLC in Bihar for 18 years.