Bhubaneswar, March 9: Veteran Congress leader and five-time chief minister of Nagaland S.C. Jamir has been appointed as the new governor of Odisha. A notification to this effect was issued by the Rastrapati Bhavan today.

Jamir, 81, will take over the charge from Muralidhar Chandrakant Bhandare, whose tenure came to an end on August 20 last year. Jamir will be the 44th governor of Odisha since 1936 when the state came into existence. Sir John Austen Hubback was the first governor of Odisha.

Prior to Jamir, the five-time chief minister of Nagaland, had served as the governor of Goa, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Jamir was elected as the first Lok Sabha member from Nagaland in 1961. From 1961 to 1970, he served as Union deputy minister of railways, labour and rehabilitation. He also served as the Union deputy minister of community development and co-operation, food and agriculture.

He was the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and played a major role in the talks for the formation of the state of Nagaland. In 1971, he was first voted to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly. Jamir has three sons, two daughters and twelve grand children. His younger daughter died in 1996.

President Pranab Mukherjee also appointed former CBI director Ashwani Kumar as Governor of Nagaland.