Tamil Nadu BJP Chief Is New Telangana Governor

In a reshuffle on Sunday, the President announced new Governors for five States in the country.

According to an official communiqu?, Tamil Nadu BJP chief Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan has been appointed Governor of Telangana, replacing E S L Narasimhan.

Also, senior Telangana BJP leader and former union minister Bandaru Dattatreya replaces Kalraj Mishra in Himachal Pradesh. Mishra has been transferred to Rajasthan, replacing Kalyan Singh, as its new Governor.

In addition, Bhagat Singh Koshyari has been appointed Governor of Maharashtra, in place of Ch Vidyasagar Rao, and Arif Mohammed Khan replaces P Sathasivam In Kerala.

Telangana getting a new Governor is a much-anticipated event - Narasimhan himself had hinted at it when he told P V Sindhu at a felicitation in Raj Bhavan recently that he may not be the Governor the next time she wins big.

Narasimhan is seen as close to Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao, and it is a known fact that the BJP is targeting power in Telangana by 2023. That could be the reason that a practising politician like Soundararajan, the head of the BJP in Tamil Nadu, has been put in the Telangana Raj Bhavan. She is quite unlikely to be a rubber stamp, and is expected to throw a spanner in the works for many of KCR's moves.

The union government hasn't given any post to the outgoing Governor E S L Narasimhan. It is being widely reported that the Centre might utilize the services of the former IPS officer and IB head in some form, though.

Narasimhan started off as the Governor of united AP on December 27, 2009, and continued as the Governor of the two Telugu States until last month, when AP got a new Governor. He continued to be the Governor of Telangana till now. These are extremely long stints for a Governor, especially given that the dispensation at the Centre changed in 2014.