LAB, KDA not enthusiastic; will go ahead with ‘Chalo Delhi’
*Prez appoints new Guvs including Retd SC Judge
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Feb 12: A day after Radha Krishna Mathur was recalled, the Central Government today approved appointment of Brigadier (Retired) BD Mishra, Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, as new Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh.
Mishra, 83, who retired as Brigadier after serving the Army for more than three decades, is expected to take over his new assignments in next few days as he had to shift from Arunachal Pradesh.
However, RK Mathur, as already reported by the Excelsior today, left Leh yesterday along with his wife Poonam Mathur and luggage after getting call from the Home Ministry that he has been shifted.
Earlier in the day, President Droupadi Murmu accepted the resignation of Mathur as the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh and approved the appointment of Mishra.
Born on July 20, 1939, Mishra joined Army on December 17, 1961 and participated in 1962 war with China followed by 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. He is also credited with playing a role in tackling the Naga insurgency in 1963-64.
Click here to watch video
He also participated in operations against LTTE as the Brigade Commander of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Jaffna, Vavuniya and Trincomalee in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1988. After his retirement in July 1995, he also volunteered for the 1999 Kargil War.
He was the Commander of the National Security Guard Counter Hijack Task Force that assaulted the hijacked aircraft of the Indian Airlines and successfully executed the hostage rescue operation at Raja Sansi Airfield, Amritsar, on April 24,1993. All 124 passengers and crew members were rescued unharmed.
Mishra was serving as the Arunachal Pradesh Governor since October 3, 2017.
Meanwhile, the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), which are spearheading agitation for their four-point agenda on Ladakh, kept the fingers crossed on change of guard at Raj Niwas in Ladakh.
Intensification of agitation by the two bodies appeared to have resulted into Mathur’s exit from Ladakh though officially no reasons have been given for his shifting.
“We are not very enthusiastic about the change in Raj Niwas (as the Raj Bhawan is called in Leh). The Lieutenant Governor is nominee of the Union Home Ministry. We will go ahead with our ‘Chalo Delhi’ call on February 15 where we will hold protest in support of our demands,” LAB senior leader and former Cabinet Minister in undivided J&K, Chering Dorjay Lakruk, told the Excelsior on telephone from Leh.
Lakruk said they are not expecting any major shift in the Government’s policy towards their demands with change of the Lieutenant Governor.
KDA leader Nassir Munshi too said the ‘Chalo Delhi’ call stands as removal of the LG was not their demand.
“We want our issues to be addressed and till this is done, we will continue to agitate,” Munshi told the Excelsior.
Four major demands of the LAB and KDA include Statehood for Ladakh, Sixth Schedule status, two Lok Sabha seats and job opportunities.
However, both the Chief Executive Councilors-cum-Chairpersons of Hills Councils of Leh and Kargil welcomed the new Lieutenant Governor and extended gratitude to the outgoing LG.
“Mathur also did good job and we expect that Brig (Retired) Mishra will work for welfare of the Ladakhis,” Chairman-cum-CEC Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) Kargil Feroz Khan said.
Chairman-cum-CEC Leh Tashi Gyalson also extended best wishes to Brig (Retired) BD Mishra and hoped that under his chairmanship, Leh would continue to assist Ladakh administration to work collectively for overall holistic development of Ladakh.
Gyalson extended his gratitude to outgoing LG RK Mathur for serving as the first Lieutenant Governor of newly created UT of Ladakh.
PTI adds: The Government today appointed six new faces as Governors, including retired Supreme Court Judge S Abdul Nazeer, who was part of the historic 2019 Ayodhya verdict, and four BJP leaders, besides carrying out a rejig of the gubernatorial posts in seven states.
According to a Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson, President Droupadi Murmu has accepted the resignations of Bhagat Singh Koshyari as the Governor of Maharashtra.
Ramesh Bais, who was the Governor of Jharkhand, has been appointed as Governor of Maharashtra, the official said.
Koshyari, who has been in the line of opposition fire over his remarks on Chhatrapati Shivaji, said last month that he had conveyed his desire to quit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that he would like to spend the remainder of his life reading, writing and in other activities.
Justice Nazeer, a former Supreme Court Judge, according to the spokesperson, was appointed as the new Governor of Andhra Pradesh. The incumbent, Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, has been shifted to Chhattisgarh.
Justice Nazeer, who retired on January 4, has been part of several path-breaking verdicts, including those on the politically sensitive Ayodhya land dispute, instant ‘triple talaq’ and the one that declared ‘right to privacy’ a fundamental right.
Elevated as an apex court judge on February 17, 2017, Justice Nazeer was part of several Constitution benches which delivered judgements on issues ranging from the demonetisation of currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations in 2016 to the reservation for Marathas in admission and Government jobs and the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression of high public functionaries.
He was part of a five-Judge Constitution bench which had in November 2019 cleared the way for the construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site at Ayodhya and directed the Centre to allot a five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for a mosque.
The Justice Nazeer-led five-Judge Constitution benches delivered two separate verdicts this year, including the one which by a majority of 4:1 validated the legality of the Centre’s 2016 decision to demonetise the Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination currency notes, saying the decision-making process was neither flawed nor hasty.
The President also appointed Lt Gen Kaiwalya Trivikram Parnaik (Retd) as Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, the spokesperson said.
Lt Gen Parnaik (Retd) served as Commander of the Army’s prestigious Northern Command, and it was during his tenure that bodies of two soldiers were mutilated by the Pakistani forces in Poonch sector in 2013.
Four BJP leaders, including two from Uttar Pradesh, were also appointed as new Governors.
According to the spokesperson, Lakshman Prasad Acharya, C P Radhakrishnan, Shiv Pratap Shukla and Gulab Chand Kataria have been appointed as governors of Sikkim, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Assam respectively.
While Acharya is a Member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, Radhakrishnan is a two-time Lok Sabha member of the BJP from Coimbatore. He was the man behind forging the BJP-led NDA alliance in 1999.
Former Minister of State for Finance Shukla was the BJP’s candidate in Rajya Sabha and retired in 2022, whereas Kataria is the sitting Leader of Opposition in Rajasthan Assembly. Kataria had served as the Home Minister in the previous Vasundhara Raje Government.
Other than Bais, Mishra and Harichandan, the other transfers included the shifting of Anusuiya Uikye from Chhattisgarh to Manipur, La. Ganesan from Manipur to Nagaland, Phagu Chauhan from Bihar to Meghalaya and Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar from Himachal Pradesh to Bihar.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
