Photo: Indic Scholar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
President Droupadi Murmu on Monday named senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sudha Yadav as the next Governor of Karnataka, making her only the second woman to occupy the Raj Bhavan in Bengaluru. She succeeds Thaawarchand Gehlot, who has held the post since July 2021.
The appointment was part of a wider reshuffle covering six states, according to a Rashtrapati Bhavan communiqué. The new governors will take charge from the dates on which they formally assume office.
Who is Sudha Yadav
Ms Yadav, who hails from Haryana, represented Mahendragarh in the Lok Sabha from 1999 to 2004. She later served on the National Commission for Backward Classes between 2019 and 2022 and joined the BJP Parliamentary Board — the party’s highest decision-making body — in August 2022. She was the second woman on the board after Sushma Swaraj.
She holds a postgraduate degree in Chemistry and a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. She is the widow of Deputy Commandant Sukhbir Singh Yadav, who was killed in the Kargil conflict. According to party accounts, she entered electoral politics after her husband’s martyrdom when Narendra Modi, then handling the BJP’s Haryana affairs, proposed her candidature from Mahendragarh; she won by a margin of about 1.39 lakh votes.
Six-state gubernatorial shuffle
Alongside Karnataka, the President approved several other changes. Om Prakash Mathur, the incumbent Governor of Sikkim, was appointed Governor of Kerala. Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, who was Governor of Kerala and had been discharging the functions of Tamil Nadu Governor since March, was named full-time Governor of Tamil Nadu.
Braj Mohan Ram was appointed Governor of Odisha, Dhal Singh Bisen Governor of Uttarakhand, and Dushyant Gautam Governor of Sikkim. The communiqué said the appointments take effect when each appointee assumes charge.
Karnataka’s second woman Governor
Karnataka’s first woman Governor was V.S. Rama Devi, who served from 1999 to 2002. Ms Yadav’s elevation comes as the state continues under a Congress government led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, with Raj Bhavan having been a frequent flashpoint in Centre–state politics in recent years.
The BJP has framed the appointment as recognition of Ms Yadav’s long organisational career, including her stint as national in-charge of the party’s OBC Morcha from 2015. Formal dates for the swearing-in at Raj Bhavan, Bengaluru, had not been announced by late Monday.
