New Delhi, Mar 05: Ladakh Lieutenant Governor Kavinder Gupta has been appointed Governor of Himachal Pradesh in a major reshuffle of Governors and Lieutenant Governors approved by President Droupadi Murmu. Delhi LG Vinai Kumar Saxena has been named as Gupta’s replacement in Ladakh.
Former Indian Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu has been appointed the new Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, filling the vacancy created by Saxena’s transfer to Ladakh.
The reshuffle, announced through an official notification, involves several states and Union Territories, with all appointments taking effect from the dates the appointees assume charge.
In other appointments, Himachal Pradesh Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla has been transferred to Telangana, replacing Jishnu Dev Varma, who moves to Maharashtra. Former Bihar minister Nand Kishore Yadav has been appointed Governor of Nagaland, while Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Syed Ata Hasnain has been named Governor of Bihar.
Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi has been appointed Governor of West Bengal following the resignation of Ananda Bose, while Kerala Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar will discharge the additional functions of Tamil Nadu Governor in the interim.
Meanwhile, Kavinder Gupta, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has held several key positions in both government and party structures over the past decades. Before taking charge as LG, he had served as Deputy Chief Minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in 2018 during the coalition government of the BJP and the People’s Democratic Party.
A resident of Janipur locality in Jammu city, the 66-year-old politician has had a long political career. He served as Mayor of Jammu for a record three consecutive terms between 2005 and 2010. Within the party organisation, Gupta also held the post of General Secretary of the BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir unit and headed the J&K unit of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) for two consecutive terms from 1993 to 1998.
Gupta was elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly for the first time from the Gandhi Nagar constituency in the 2014 Assembly elections. Following his victory, he was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly.
Earlier in his career, he also served as secretary of the Vishva Hindu Parishad.
On June 19, 2018, Gupta had resigned from the post of Deputy Chief Minister after just 51 days in office when the BJP withdrew support from its alliance with the PDP, leading to the collapse of the coalition government.
After the reorganisation of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 into two Union Territories — Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh — Gupta later assumed charge as the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh. He succeeded Brigadier (Dr) B.D. Mishra (Retd), who had taken over the position in February 2023 after replacing R. K. Mathur, the first Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory.
