NEW DELHI, Aug 17 - Former MP and Managing Editor of The Hitavada newspaper, Banwarilal Purohit has been appointed as the Governor of Assam. He replaces Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya.
The appointment was announced today by the President. Along with the Governor of Assam, Najma A Heptulla has been appointed as Governor of Manipur, while VP Singh Badnore will be the new Governor of Punjab and Prof Jagdish Mukhi the Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The appointments will take effect from the dates the incumbents assume charge of their respective offices, an official communique here said. Nagaland Governor Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya was holding additional charge as Assam Governor, while Meghalaya Governor V Shanmuganathan was holding the additional charge as Manipur Governor.
Reacting to his appointment, Purohit tweeted: �This is an opportunity to serve the nation. Party has got a lot of expectation and I will fulfil them. I�ll try my best to fulfil the given responsibility.�
Considered close to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Banwarilal Purohit was a three-time Lok Sabha MP from the Nagpur, twice as a Congressman and once as a BJP party member. In 1978, he was elected to Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and served as a state minister in 1982-83.
In 1984, he was elected to the eighth Lok Sabha as a member of the Congress party. He was re-elected in 1989 again on a Congress ticket. Purohit opened the account of the BJP in 1996 Lok Sabha election. In 2009, he again contested on BJP�s ticket, but lost the election to Vilas Muttemwar of the Congress.
Banwarilal Purohit is also chairman of Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and director of the Nagpur city unit of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
BJP sources said that Purohit was in the running for nomination to the Rajya Sabha, but after failing to get the nomination, he was a hot favourite for a top level appointment.
Born on April 16, 1940, he was educated at GS College of Commerce, Nagpur University, Nagpur (Maharashtra). The Lok Sabha who-is-who describes him as a journalist, agriculturist, and political and social worker.
Heptulla, 76, had last month resigned as the Minority Affairs Minister from the Union Cabinet. The resignation had come as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is believed to have set an unwritten writ of �75-year age bar� for ministers and had kept veterans like LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi out of the Cabinet and co-opted them in the �Margdarshak Mandal�.