Gangtok, Oct. 24: Sikkim governor V. Rama Rao relinquished office today after a five-year tenure, paving way for his successor Sudarshan Agarwal to take over the reins tomorrow.

Agarwal, who was appointed governor of Uttarakhand on January 8 in 2003, will be sworn in at Raj Bhawan here by Justice A. N. Roy, the Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Agarwal will be the governor of Sikkim for the remainder of his term. He was a member of the National Human Rights Commission and also the secretary-general of the Rajya Sabha in the past.

The outgoing governor will head for his home in Hyderabad tomorrow. “I visited 85 per cent of the villages in Sikkim, have interacted with people and seen all the development activities. People are happy and satisfied. There is a lot of progress and prosperity. Sikkim has a very bright future,”, he told The Telegraph.

Rao was instrumental in helping boost tourism and investments in Sikkim from south India, particularly from Andhra Pradesh. He had also been credited with promoting the hill state as a destination for film shoots for south Indian movies.

An advocate of Andhra Pradesh High Court, Rao was elected to the Legislative Council for four terms from 1966 to 1984. He was a member of the Jan Sangh. In 2001, he became the chairman of the BJP’s central disciplinary action committee and next year became the party’s national vice-president, before being appointed the governor.

Rao had taken over from Kidar Nath Sahani.