NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday appointed seasoned diplomat Taranjit Singh Sandhu, who unsuccessfully contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket from Jalandhar, as the new Lieutenant Governor of Delhi.
A veteran diplomat with nearly four decades of experience in India’s foreign service, Sandhu succeeds Vinai Kumar Saxena in the constitutional role overseeing the administration of the National Capital Territory.
Sandhu, a 1988-batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service, is best known for serving as India’s Ambassador to the United States from 2020 to 2024, a period marked by deepening strategic ties between New Delhi and Washington.
Prior to that, Sandhu served as High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 2017 to 2020 and earlier held the post of Deputy Chief of Mission at the Indian Embassy in Washington.
Born on January 23, 1963, in Punjab, Sandhu studied at The Lawrence School, Sanawar before pursuing higher education at University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University. He belongs to a prominent Sikh family and is the grandson of freedom fighter Teja Singh Samundri, a key figure in the Sikh reform movement.
After retiring from the diplomatic service in 2024, Sandhu joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and entered electoral politics. He contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar, though he was unsuccessful.
His appointment as the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi places him in a crucial administrative position in the national capital, where he will work alongside the elected government on matters related to governance, law and order, and coordination with the Union government.
Sandhu’s wife, Reenat Sandhu, is also a former diplomat who has served as India’s ambassador to several countries.