BHUBANESWAR: A qualified engineer with a PhD and a teacher in Andhra University Engineering College for 24 years, the newly-appointed Governor of Odisha, Hari Babu Kambhampati has had a long political career to boot.
The 71-year-old Mizoram Governor who will replace Raghubar Das had joined student politics in 1972. He was arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) during Emergency and imprisoned for six months.
Hari Babu, who holds a PhD degree in Control Systems, became a state executive member of Janata Party in 1977 and worked in different capacities till the formation of BJP in 1980. He became general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh BJP in 1993 and continued till 2003.
He tasted his first electoral success in 1999 when he was elected to Andhra Pradesh Assembly from Visakhapatnam. He was also appointed a member of the task force constituted by the NDA government led by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for interlinking of rivers during 2003-2004.
His political graph rose when he was appointed as one of the national secretaries of the BJP in 2005. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Visakhapatnam parliamentary constituency in 2014. He served as Andhra Pradesh unit of BJP president from 2014-2018 before being appointed Mizoram Governor in 2021.