Manoj Sinha: All you need to know about Jammu and Kashmir’s new Lieutenant Governor

By Team Newsable | First Published Aug 6, 2020, 5:59 PM IST

On Thursday, the President’s office notified that the former minister of state for railways and three-time MP Manoj Sinha will be the second Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. He replaced Murmu. Read more about Sinha's political life.

Lucknow: Former minister of state for railways and Senior BJP leader Manoj Sinha is the new Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. On Wednesday evening (August 5), Girish Chandra Murmu submitted his resignation. On Thursday morning, the President’s office said in a statement that Sinha has been appointed as LG of Jammu and Kashmir.

After his defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, there were speculations about Sinha. After one year, he has been given the responsibility of becoming the second LG of Jammu and Kashmir.

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Sinha, at the age of 23, had won the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) student union election. Sinha did not look back ever since. Since the beginning of his political career he was associated with the BJP and then in 1996 he won the Lok Sabha seat from Gazipur to become a Member of Parliament for the first time.

In 2014, there was a pro-Narendra Modi wave and Sinha riding high on it won the Gazipur Lok Sabha seat for the third time. Gazipur is considered as Sinha’s political turf. He was very active in his parliamentary constituency, but in 2019 fortunes reversed and Sinha lost the election.

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People close to Sinha say that he is a man of simple nature. There is no enemy of his within or outside his party. Sinha is good at maintaining good relations with everyone.

Sinha has a clean image. When the BJP got the majority in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, Sinha was the frontrunner in being appointed as the state’s chief minister. Although he kept denying this. He was made the minister of state for railways in Modi’s first tenure as the prime minister. Sinha did a fine job in Modi’s constituency of Varanasi, and Poorvanchal area.

Sinha is considered to be close to PM Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah. Modi and Sinha had been on good terms since their RSS days. Earlier, he was considered opposing defence minister Rajnath Singh but now the two are on good terms.

Former state president of Uttar Pradesh Yuva Morcha Ashutosh Rai said that because he was born in a farming family, Sinha’s heart always beats for the farmers and rural India. He always had his focus on the backward villages of India. He used to be a paddy, wheat, and potato farmer.

His dedication to farmers and agriculture can be known from the fact that when in 2014 he became the Union minister of state he started a port for farmers in Gazipur. It was because of his efforts that the farmers of the district could send their produce to Europe.

Between 1989 and 1996, Sinha served as a member of the national working committee of the BJP. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996, 1999 and 2014. Sinha was elected from Gazipur in 1996.

Between 1999 and 2000, he was a member of the General Council of School of Planning and Architecture. Apart from this, he was also a member of the Government Assurance Committee and the Energy Committee.

Born on July 1, 1959, Sinha did his M. Tech in civil engineering in 1982 from Indian Institute of Technology (Kashi Hindu University). Sinha married Neelam Sinha on May 1, 1977 in Sultanganj, Bhagalpur. They have a daughter, who is married. And their son works in a telecom company.

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