JOIN USManoj Sinha to take oath as new LG of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday
Former union minister and senior BJP leader from Uttar Pradesh, Manoj Sinha, who was on Thursday appointed as Lt Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, will be administered the oath of office on Friday at Raj Bhavan, Srinagar.
Sources said 61-year-old Sinha, who arrived in Srinagar in the afternoon after his appointment, will be administered oath by J&K Chief Justice Gita Mittal at Raj Bhawan at the foothills of the Zaberwan range. The warrant of appointment of Sinha will be read out by Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam.
Sinha was junior Minister for Railways and Union Minister for Communications in the first Modi government. However, he lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh.
The change took place on the first anniversary of the Centre's move to scrap special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile state into two union territories (UTs)—Ladakh and J&K, when first LG Girish Chandra Murmu resigned after holding the office for nine months.
Sources said Murmu’s inability to fill in the “political vacuum” created after the formation of the UT and his stand on restoration of 4G internet led to his resignation as the LG. “The Center wanted to place a politician at the helm of affairs in J&K instead of a bureaucrat which became one of the primary reasons for Murmu’s removal,” they said.
However, sources said, Murmu’s comments on the restoration of 4G internet services in the UT against the wishes of the Center became the immediate trigger for his hasty removal. Last month Murmu had said 4g internet services should be restored in the Valley.
Later the Centre told the Supreme Court, which is hearing a petition on restoration of 4G internet services in Kashmir, that it would verify these reports. Murmu’s reported recommendation caused a stir as the Centre has been maintaining that the situation was not ripe to restore high speed Internet owing to heightened militant activities in J&K.