If political speculation is to be believed, there is a strong rumor that former Union Minister General V K Singh (retd) may be appointed as the new Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Jammu & Kashmir. According to Reports, the incumbent LG Manoj Sinha may resign and contest the Lok Sabha elections from Ghazipur of Uttar Pradesh.
Gen Singh (retd) won the Ghaziabad seat in 2014 and repeated the victory in 2019. However, this time he was not given the ticket by the Bharatiya Janata Party instead sitting MLA Atul Garg has been made party candidate from the constituency.
If these speculations turning true, it would be a clever move by the BJP, as the party would effectively address two issues with one action. Firstly, this move could significantly address the issue of Rajputs being angry with the BJP in Gujarat, Rajasthan and some other parts of the country due to some derogatory statements made by some BJP leaders against the community. General V K Singh’s over ten years of experience as a Union Minister, combined with his career in defense, would add greater significance to this appointment.
Furthermore, Manoj Sinha’s candidacy from Ghazipur would also be seen as bringing him into the mainstream and would likely appeal to the influential Bhumihar community in both Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Sinha assumed the role of Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir on August 7, 2020, hails from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur. He served as a Union Minister in the Narendra Modi government from May 2014 to May 2019, holding the positions of MoS Railways and MoS with independent charge of Communications.
In 2014, Sinha defeated the Samajwadi Party’s Shivkanya Kushwaha from Ghazipur before losing to the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Afzal Ansari in 2019.
