President Droupadi Murmu on Monday appointed former Bengal BJP president and academic Ashim Kumar Ghosh as the governor of Haryana.
Another BJP leader, Kavinder Gupta, was appointed as the lieutenant governor of the Union Territory of Ladakh, while NDA ally TDP leader Ashok Gajapathi Raju got the governor’s post in Goa.
The gubernatorial appointments came a day after four persons, including two BJP leaders, were nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the President, indicating the start of a process by the ruling dispensation to usher in
wider changes.
The process to elect a new BJP president has been dragging on for a long time, but party insiders said the issue was likely to be resolved soon. A significant overhaul in the government and the party is on the cards after the election of a new BJP chief,
sources said.
Ghosh, 81, the Bengal BJP president from 1999 to 2002, was appointed the governor of BJP-ruled Haryana. He will replace 78-year-old Bandaru Dattatreya, who was a cabinet minister in the first Modi government. Using the unofficial retirement age of 75, the prominent OBC leader from Telangana was moved out of active politics and made a governor to usher in agenerational shift.
“It is a matter of immense honour and joy for the people of West Bengal that professor Shri Ashim Kumar Ghosh, a distinguished academician and seasoned statesman, has been appointed as the governor of Haryana…,” Union minister and former Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said on X. Majumdar said Ghosh had “served with distinction” as the state president of the Bengal BJP.
Party leaders said Ghosh, who had been hardly active in the party in recent times, was rewarded for his work in the formative years of the party in Bengal. He unsuccessfully contested the bypolls for the Howrah Lok Sabha seatin 2013.
Kavinder Gupta, the former deputy chief minister of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state, will now be the lieutenant governorof Ladakh.
In August 2019, Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its special status after the abrogation of Article 370 and the state was split into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Gupta will succeed 85-year-old B.D. Mishra, who has resigned. “The President of India has accepted the resignation of Brig. (Dr) BD Mishra (Retd.) as lieutenant governor of Union Territory,” a communique from the President’s House said.
The new LG of Ladakh has been deeply associated with the RSS and served as the mayor of Jammu. He was elected to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in 2014. In April 2018, he was made deputy chief minister in the PDP-BJP coalition under chief minister Mehbooba Mufti. He resigned just 51 days later, on June 19, 2018, after the BJP withdrew from the alliance.
Former civil aviation minister and TDP leader Ashok Gajapathi Raju, 74, the new governor of BJP-ruled Goa, comes from a royal family in Andhra Pradesh and replaces P.S. Sreedharan Pillai. He was the civil aviation minister in the first Modi government and his appointment points to an effort by the BJP to keep the key NDA ally happy. The BJP lacks a majority in the Lok Sabha and banks on key allies JDU and TDP for support.
“A seasoned statesman with vast administrative and parliamentary experience, his guidance will be invaluable as we continue our journey towards Vikshit Goa 2037,” Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant said on X.