Days ahead of polls, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal to get new Governors

Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi was appointed Governor of West Bengal on Thursday, March 5, 2026, while Kerala Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar has been given additional responsibility from Tamil Nadu ahead of Assembly elections in key States.

According to an official statement from Rashtrapati Bhavan, Himachal Pradesh Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla has been appointed as Telangana Governor, while Telangana Governor Jishnu Dev Varma will be the Governor of Maharashtra. Nand Kishore Yadav was appointed Governor of Nagaland and Lieutenant General (retired) Syed Ata Hasnain was appointed Governor of Bihar. Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena will be elected as Ladakh Lieutenant Governor, while Taranjit Singh Sandhu will be Delhi Lieutenant Governor.

West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose and Ladakh Lieutenant Governor Kavinder Gupta resigned on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Mr. Gupta will take charge as Governor of Himachal Pradesh.

Mr. Gupta was appointed as the LG of Ladakh in July 2025. His tenure witnessed unprecedented violence in the city of Leh on September 24, 2025, when four people, including a Kargil war veteran, were killed when police opened fire as a protest demanding constitutional protection for the district turned violent.

Relations between the Tamil Nadu Governor and MK Stalin’s government remain stormy, with the ruling DMK accusing the Governor of positioning himself as a political rival to an elected government. Mr Ravi disapproved several Bills after the Supreme Court exercised its power to declare 10 Bills “effectively assented” in April 2025. He also left the Parliament several times without reading his customary speech or going beyond the text prepared by the government. He had once declared that he would never approve the NEET exemption bill given to him.

Incidentally, it was on Mr. Ravi’s suggestion that the name of Raj Bhavan was changed to Lok Bhavan a few months ago. Mr. Ravi, a former Indian Police Service officer who retired from the Intelligence Bureau, was also the interlocutor of the Naga peace talks between 2014-2021.

Mr. Bose, who has been in the post for the last three and a half years, submitted his resignation to President Droupadi Murmu in Delhi.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Union Home Minister Amit Shah called her and informed her about Mr. Ravi’s appointment. He said he was “shocked and deeply concerned by the news of Mr Bose’s sudden resignation”.

“The Union Home Minister informed me that Shri RN Ravi will be appointed as the Governor of West Bengal. He never consulted me in this regard as per the established convention,” Ms. Banerjee said.

The Chief Minister said that although he did not know the reasons for the resignation, “he would not be surprised if the Governor comes under pressure from the Union Home Minister to serve certain political interests on the eve of the upcoming State Assembly elections.”

He added that such actions undermine the spirit of the Constitution and “deal with the foundations of our federal structure.”