President Draupadi Murmu on Thursday evening appointed former diplomat Taranjit Singh Sandhu as the new Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and transferred retired IPS officer RN Ravi from Tamil Nadu to West Bengal, as part of a broader reshuffle across nine districts that came just weeks before the high-stakes Assembly elections.
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A statement issued by her office said that Ravi will succeed C.V. Ananda Bose, whose resignation was accepted by the President.
Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Vinay Kumar Saxena has been appointed Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, and the current occupant of the Lok Niwas post in the Union Territory, Kavinder Gupta, has been transferred to Himachal Pradesh.
Sandhu, a former Indian ambassador to the US, has joined the BJP and has been fielded as the party’s candidate in Amritsar in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. His appointment in the capital comes a year after the BJP won the assembly elections.
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Ravi – who has repeatedly clashed with the state government in Tamil Nadu, leading to cases in the Supreme Court – is moving to Bengal just weeks before the assembly elections. The term of the State Assembly ends on May 7. Ravi allegedly sat on the bills, refused to read from the text prepared by the state government in the Assembly several times, and was involved in several controversies related to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government.
Former Bihar Assembly Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav has been appointed Governor of Nagaland and Lieutenant General (retd) Syed Atta Hasnain has been appointed as the new Governor of Bihar. The announcement comes hours after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar filed his nomination for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, bringing about a radical shift in the state’s politics.
Kerala Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlikar will assume charge of Tamil Nadu Governor, the press release said.
Himachal Pradesh Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla has been appointed as the new Governor of Telangana in place of Jishnu Dev Varma, who has been appointed as the new Governor of Maharashtra.
Earlier on Thursday evening, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed shock over the developments.
“I am shocked and deeply concerned at the sudden news of resignation of Mr CV Ananda Bose, Governor of West Bengal… Union Home Minister has just informed me that Mr RN Ravi has been appointed Governor of West Bengal. He never consulted me as per established convention in this regard,” Banerjee said on X programme.
“The reasons for his resignation are not known to me at this moment. However, given the prevailing circumstances, I would not be surprised if the Governor comes under some pressure from the Union Home Minister to serve certain political interests on the eve of the upcoming state assembly elections,” Banerjee added in a post on X.
Like his predecessor Jagdeep Dhankar, Bose’s tenure was also marked by an acrimonious relationship between the Trinamool Congress and the Lok Bhavan.
Gupta was transferred from Ladakh just seven-and-a-half months after taking charge of the Union Territory that had been embroiled in a long-running agitation demanding statehood and safeguards under Regulation VI of the Constitution.
On September 24 last year, at least four people were killed and about 100 others injured in Leh after the demands for full statehood and protection of jobs and land turned violent.
