Manoj Sinha to take oath as new Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir today

SRINAGAR: Manoj Sinha, former union minister and senior BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh, will on Friday (August 7) take oath as the new Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. He is the first political leader to take charge as the LG of the union territory.

Sinha is likely to be administered the oath of office and secrecy by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Justice Gita Mittal at the Raj Bhavan, located on the foothills of the Zaberwan range.

The 61-year-old is known for his massive connect with the people of rural areas. He comes in place of former IAS officer Girish Chandra Murmu who hurriedly tendered his resignation on Wednesday night.

The former Union minister, who arrived in a state plane in Srinagar, was received by Advisors to the previous LG including Farooq Khan, Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam and top brass of the police and civil administration. A guard of honour was accorded to him at the airport. Later, he held an informal meeting with the four advisors, the Chief Secretary and senior police officials.

Among the priorities in hand for Sinha would be to end factionalism within the bureaucracy in the union territory, with some senior IAS officers recently found to be publicly indulging in verbal spats. The other aspect would be to revisit the state intelligence department which has been failing in anticipating the situation off late. In the last three days there have been two attacks on Panchs and Sarpanchs in South Kashmir's Kulgam district.

Known as 'vikas purush' (man involved in developmental work), Sinha is a three-time Lok Sabha MP who held charge of the Communication Ministry as a Minister of State in 2016 when the telecom industry was engaged in the sale of spectrum.

A B.Tech in civil engineering from the Institute of Technology (now known as IIT-BHU), Sinha has been credited with overcoming the menace of call dropping by holding widespread consultations with telecom operators.

Elected to Lok Sabha in 1996 for the first time, Sinha, an agriculturist, is the first politician to be elected as LG of the union territory. 

Earlier, the Centre had appointed Satya Pal Malik, a politician, as governor of the erstwhile state before it was bifurcated into two union territories -- Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir -- on August 5, 2019.