New Dehi : President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday appointed five governors and a lieutenant governor of Andaman and Nicobar, including serving BJP national vice-president Satyapal Malik (65) in Bihar to fill the vacancy caused by his resignation to contest the presidential poll.
There are actually four new appointees while two have been transferred – former Nagpur MP Banwarilal Purohit (77) from Assam to Tamil Nadu while Prof. Jagdish Mukhi (75), a former Delhi minister who was the Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, fills his post in Assam.
Besides Malik, three other new faces are Ganga Prasad, a Bihar MLC for 18 years until 2012, as the governor of Meghalaya, Brigadier(retd) Dr B D Mishra as governor of Arunachal Pradesh and Admiral (retd) Devendra Kumar Joshi (63) as the LG of Andaman & Nicobar in place of Mukhi.
Malik, who hails from Uttar Pradesh and known as a socialist leader, has been a minister of state at the Centre 27 years ago and has been changing the parties as he has been in Congress, Lok Dal and Janata Dal before joining the BJP.
Purohit replaces K Vidyasagar Rao (72), who was holding the additional charge of Tamil Nadu besides Maharashtra for the last one year.
Ganga Prasad, who becomes the Meghalaya governor, was leader of Opposition for five years in the Bihar Legislative Council and leader of the Council during the previous NDA rule.
Brigadier Mishra gained prominence in 1993 when he led a team of black cat commandos of the National Security Guard (NSG) to rescue all 141 hostages of the hijacked Indian Airlines’ Delhi-Srinagar flight at the Amritsar airport and kill the lone hijacker Mohd Yousuf Shah.
Admiral (retd) Joshi resigned as the 21st Chief of the Naval Staff in February 2014, a year before his due retirement, after a submarine accident off the Mumbai coast, saying he was stepping down taking moral responsibility for “accidents and incidents which have taken place during the past few months.”
