Former Army chief VK Singh was sworn in as the new Governor of Mizoram on Thursday. Singh becomes the 25th Governor of Mizoram since it gained full statehood in 1987. Singh, a former Union minister, replaced Hari Babu Kambhampati, who has been appointed as the Governor of Odisha.
Gauhati High Court Chief Justice Vijay Bishnoi administered the oath of office and secrecy to Singh at a ceremony held at Raj Bhavan in Aizawl. The ceremony was attended by Chief Minister Lalduhoma and his Cabinet colleagues, Assembly Speaker Lalbiakjama, Deputy Speaker Lalfamkima, MPs, MLAs, senior bureaucrats and top police officials.
Apart from former Chief Ministers Lal Thanhawla and Zoramthanga, church leaders and representatives of various organizations were also present at the programme. President Draupadi Murmu had appointed Singh as the Governor on December 24. The swearing-in ceremony was initially scheduled for January 9, but it was postponed to January 16 due to health problems of one of Singh’s relatives.
Born in 1951, Singh served as the 24th Army Chief from 2010 to 2012. After retiring from the army, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 and was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Ghaziabad constituency of Uttar Pradesh in the general election of that year. He was re-elected from the same seat in 2019.
During the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, he served as the Minister of State for External Affairs, Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region and Minister of State in the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation.
In the second term of the Modi government, he was the Minister of State in the Ministries of Road Transport and Highways and Civil Aviation.
