New Delhi, June 10
Former union home secretary N.N. Vohra will be the next Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, succeeding Lt-Gen S.K. Sinha (retd) whose five-year tenure ended last week. A formal announcement in this regard is expected anytime.
This will be the first time in nearly two decades that the troubled state will have a Governor who does not have a military background. Both the Centre and the Congress leadership were keen that a civilian should occupy the J&K Raj Bhavan in view of the improved situation in the state and also because the assembly elections are to be held later this year.
Jagmohan was the last retired bureaucrat to hold this post. He was, however, recalled in 1990 when the situation in the state took a turn for the worse.
Vohra, who is the government’s special interlocutor on J&K, was considered the obvious choice in view of his deep understanding of the developments in the state and his acquaintance with the key players there.
The former home secretary was first appointed interlocutor for Kashmir in 2003 by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Vohra was mandated to start a dialogue with different organisations in Jammu and Kashmir to bring about peace in the border state.
When the Congress-led UPA government assumed office in 2004, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejected Vohra’s resignation and retained him as his special envoy on Kashmir. The UPA government decided to continue with Vohra as its special envoy since the former bureaucrat had proved to be an effective interlocutor without aligning himself with any political organisation. As a seasoned bureaucrat, Vohra has handled a variety of important assignments during his long innings in the government. As a member of the Indian Administrative Service from 1959-94, Vohra has served as secretary, defence production, home secretary, defence secretary and principal secretary to the Prime Minister.
Other important positions he has held include member of the National Security Advisory Board, chairman of the National Task Force on Internal Security, chairman of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis Review Committee, chairman of the Military History Review Committee, and director of the India International Centre. Vohra is also a trustee of The Tribune Trust. He was decorated with the Padma Vibhushan this year. Vohra had authored the report in 1993 on the problem of criminalisation of politics and the nexus between criminals, politicians and bureaucrats.
