NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday announced the names of new governors for West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Nagaland.
According to the Centre’s announcement, Ram Naik will be the new governor of UP, while Om Prakash Kohli will be the governor of Gujarat.
The Centre also named Balram Das Tandon as Chhattisgarh governor, Keshari Nath Tripathi as West Bengal governor and Padmanabha Acharya as Nagaland governor.
Keshari Nath Tripathi, 79, was elected as member of the UP Legislative Assembly for the first time in 1997. He is the only member who was nominated as speaker of the Assembly thrice in 1991, 1997 and 2002. A lawyer by profession, Tripathi is a Hindi poet by choice.
The surprise in the list, Om Prakash Kohli, 78, was a former Rajya Sabha MP and in 2009 he was elected president of the Delhi BJP unit. Kohli, a teacher by profession, enjoys the confidence of the RSS. A former DUTA president, Kohli was also associated with the ABVP.
Balram Das Tandon, 87, the newly appointed governor of Chhattisgarh, was the founder member of Jan Sangh in 1951. Tandon was secretary of Punjab Jan Sangh from 1951 to 1957 and served as president of the Punjab BJP from 1995 to 1997. A six-time member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, Tandon also served as Cabinet minister in the Prakash Singh Badal government.
Another surprise inclusion in the list was Padmanabha Acharya, a member of the working group on the Northeast region of BJP and co-convener of overseas friends of BJP. Acharya, 80, had extensively worked in tribal areas of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya. As governor of Nagaland, Acharya will also discharge the functions of the governor of Tripura until regular arrangements are made.
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