First Lt Governors of JK and Ladakh appointed; Oath on Oct 31

New Delhi: Girish Chander Murmu, a senior IAS officer, who worked closely with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat and is currently the expenditure secretary, was on Friday appointed the first Lt Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, six days ahead of the state becoming a union territory.

Murmu, 59, an IAS officer of 1985 batch, worked as Modi’s additional principle secretary during his tenure as Gujarat chief minister. He was due for retirement on November 30.

He will be administered oath of office on October 31 in Srinagar after which he will be the administrative head of Kashmir and Jammu provinces. The state’s third province — Ladakh– has been carved out as a separate Union Territory.

Former defence secretary R K Mathur was appointed the first Lt Governor of strategically located Ladakh. The 65-year-old bureaucrat, belonging to 1977 IAS batch, retired as chief information commissioner last year. He will be administered oath of office on October 31 in Leh.

The present governor of the state Satya Pal Malik moves to Goa for the remainder of his tenure as the governor. He was first appointed governor of Bihar in September 2017 and later shifted to Jammu and Kashmir last year in August.

Malik succeeds Mridula Sinha, who completed her five-year tenure in August this year but continued to hold the post till October 23.

The two Union territories — Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir — will come into existence on October 31 after the Centre abrogated the special status of the state and bifurcated it into union territories on August 5.

With the appointment of Murmu, the tenure of advisors to the Jammu and Kashmir Governor — K Vijay Kumar, Khursheed Ganai, K Sikandan and K K Sharma — may come to an end as all of them are seniors in service to the new Lt Governor.

In another order, former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief and Union government appointed interlocutor to Jammu and Kashmir, Dineshwar Sharma, has been appointed as administrator to Lakshadweep. An order to this effect was issued by the Union home ministry.

BJP’s Kerala president P S Sreedharan Pillai has been appointed as the new governor of Mizoram, the Rashtrapati Bhawan statement said. Assam governor Jagdish Mukhi has been holding the additional charge of Mizoram.