Who is Manoj Sinha, Centre's surprise pick as new Lt Governor for Jammu & Kashmir?

The appointment of former Union Minister Manoj Sinha as the new Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir sees the return of a political leader in the Srinagar Raj Bhavan. In a surprising series of events on Thursday, Sinha was appointed as the LG for the politically sensitive J&K, within hours after Girish Chandra Murmu resigned from the post.

A three-time BJP Member of Parliament from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh, Manoj Sinha (61) served as the Minister of State for Communications and Railways in the previous term of the Modi government. However, he lost the Lok Sabha election from Ghazipur in 2019.

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Manoj Sinha is said to enjoy PM Narendra Modi’s trust and confidence for decades. In 2017, he was widely pitched to be the Chief Minister of UP after BJP’s remarkable victory, but the circumstances changed overnight for the soft-spoken Manoj Sinha.

After PM Modi returned from the grand Bhoomi Pujan ceremony in Ayodhya on Wednesday, he called Manoj Sinha and conveyed the news which he humbly accepted. Later that day, Home Minister Amit Shah, who is currently diagnosed with coronavirus, also spoke to Sinha and conveyed the trust that PM has shown in choosing him to take on the very sensitive office.

It is believed that Sinha’s appointment is a great thrust to create a conducive environment for the BJP to begin the political process in the Union Territory. The first and biggest challenge that the UP native may face in Kashmir is preparing the ground for elections that are long overdue. For this, Sinha will have to instil confidence in the people, who’ve been much conflicted since the abrogation of Article 370.

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Manoj Sinha – Early political career

Hailing from Mohanpura in Ghazipur, Sinha has a BTech in civil engineering from the Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi. At the university, he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP.

The student leader then served as president of the students’ union at Kashi Hindu Vishwavidyalaya during 1982-83. In 1989, Sinha became a member of the national council of the BJP. Sinha became an MP for the first time in the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996. He was then elected to the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999 and served on the Standing Committees on Energy and Government Assurances.

In 2014, he was elected to Lok Sabha for a third term and joined Modi’s Council of Ministers as MoS Railways. In July 2016, he was promoted to Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) rank and was given the charge of the Ministry of Communications.

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(Image credits: PTI)