TNI Bureau: President Droupadi Murmu has appointed former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das as the next Governor of Odisha. She also appointed BJP leader from Telangana Indra Sena Reddy Nallu as the Governor of Tripura.
According to a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique issued on Wednesday, the new Governors’ appointments will take effect from the dates they assume charge of their respective offices.
Currently, Das is a national vice president of the BJP. He served as the chief minister of Jharkhand between 2014 and 2019.
A brief profile of Raghubar Das:
Das was born in Jamshedpur on May 3, 1955 to Chavan Ram, a labourer with a steel company.
After passing the matriculation from Bhalubasa Harijan High School, Das, a former RSS functionary, completed his B.Sc. and LLB degree from Jamshedpur Cooperative College.
His political career began ever since he was in college. He was arrested for his involvement in Jayprakash Narayan-led Total Revolution movement and during the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. Subsequently, Das joined the Janata Party in 1977.
Later, Das joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a founding member in 1980 and was appointed the chief of unit of Sitaramdera in Jamshedpur. Later he served as the city chief secretary and the vice president of Jamshedpur, BJP secretary and then became the vice president.
Das became the the MLA in 1995 from Jamshedpur East and represented the constituency five more times.
In 2004, he was appointed a chief of BJP in Jharkhand and under his leadership BJP won 30 seats in Jharkhand Legislative Assembly election in 2005.
Das also served as the Urban Development Minister during the NDA government in 2005. He also led the 2009 Indian general election in the state and held the office of Deputy Chief Minister of Jharkhand state from 30 December 2009 to 29 May 2010, when Shibu Soren was the chief minister.
Raghubar was also appointed the vice president in the National Committee of BJP on 16 August 2014 and became the sixth and the first non-tribal chief minister of the state on December 28, 2014.
However in 2019, BJP under his leadership managed to win only 25 out of 81 assembly seats following which he resigned.
Personally too Das lost to Saryu Rai, an ex-BJP leader, who was an independent candidate from the Jamshedpur east constituency with more than 15,000 votes.