Every second governor of the Modi era is from UP or the south, and a third have ties to the RSS.

On Saturday night, as news of the Delhi coach accident and the death of 3 students gained momentum in the national media, an announcement came from Rashtrapati Bhavan that 6 new governors have been appointed across the country. At the same time, the current 3 governors have been transferred. This is the first appointment by the governors after Narendra Modi took over for the third term. During Modi's first two terms, Raj Bhavans (in non-BJP states) have been embroiled in controversies due to conflicts with state governments. Besides, 12 questions are raised about their role during formation and fall of government in a particular state. A total of 58 new names arrived at the Raj Bhavan in Modi's first 10 years. At the same time, if we include the new appointments of ESL Narasimhan and Krishna Kant Pal, who were appointed during the Manmohan Singh era, the number will go up to 60. 10 days ago we filed an account of these 60 governors. In the first part of the story, we learned that during Modi's two tenures, firstly, which people got 1 full term i.e. 5 years in a single state. Second – Which states had the highest number of governors transferred? Third – Which states had stability in terms of appointment of governors? And fourth – who were the governors in the Manmohan era that continued for at least a few years even in the Modi era? More analysis today. Fifth point – 60 people who were appointed as governors in the Modi era are home states of UP, South. Between 2014 and 2024, 13 governors (about a quarter) were residents of Uttar Pradesh. These included retired Indian Army officers like Nirbai Sharma and PD Mishra and prominent politicians like Kesari Nath Tripathi, Kalraj Misra and Kalyan Singh. After Uttar Pradesh, South India and here Tamil Nadu has been given more importance. A total of 4 people from Tamil Nadu (6), Kerala (3), Karnataka (2) and united Andhra Pradesh have visited the Raj Bhavan in Modi's first two terms. Even though BJP's support base in South India is weak, sending 15 people from these 5 states to the Raj Bhavan is an example of the party's disciplined politics. With this, we can say without any hesitation that every other governor of the Modi era has been from Uttar Pradesh or South India. Apart from Uttar Pradesh and South India, if we look for the names of governors from the point of view of other states, we find 5 for Punjab, 4 for Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat (3) and 2 each. From Maharashtra, Odisha became the Governor in 10 years. West Bengal, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Haryana, Delhi and Goa are the states that rank slightly lower in this context. In Modi's 10 years, only 1-1 names from these states managed to secure their seats in the Raj Bhavan. It is not surprising that the North-Eastern states have no personality from any state other than Assam. Sixth point – How many people and non-political background? It is true that the best names to reach the Raj Bhavan in Modi's first 10 years have been long-serving ones in socio-political life. But 20 percent of the names are from non-political backgrounds. In this, R. N. Ravi, CV Anand Bose, Jyoti Prasad Rajkoa etc. held various positions as executive officers. At the same time, including the re-appointment of Narasimhan and Krishna Kant Paul (both retired from IPS) who were appointed during Manmohan Singh's tenure in the Modi regime, there are a total of 5 people in the civil service. Background. Apart from these 5 people, 4 officers who took office as governors were connected with the army. PT Mishra from Uttar Pradesh, Nirbai Sharma, Maharashtra born K. D. Paranaik and Gurmeet Singh from Punjab held high positions in the Indian Army for a long time. And on his retirement he became the Governor. Paranaik still handles the charge of Arunachal Pradesh while Gurmeet Singh handles the charge of Uttarakhand Raj Bhavan. Apart from officers, another program where retired persons were sent to Raj Bhavan was Adalia i.e. Judiciary. P. Sathasivath, who was the Chief Justice of the country during 2013-2014, was given a full tenure of 5 years by the Modi government. Four months after retiring as Chief Justice, he was appointed as the Governor of Kerala. He is the first Chief Justice of the country to assume the post of Governor after retirement. Another name worth mentioning in this context is that of Syed Abdul Nasir. He was appointed as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh in January 2023, two months after retiring from the Supreme Court. Syed Naseer has been a part of the constitution bench that hears cases like demonetisation, Ayodhya dispute and triple talaq. In this way, 11 of the 60 governors who took office as governors for the first two terms of the Modi regime came from non-political backgrounds. Seventh point – one third of the background of the association; As for others, at least a third (20) of the Governors appointed from Jan Sangh and BJP during the Narendra Modi era started their socio-political careers in the Sangh and its offshoots. It includes Tathagata Roy, Rajendra Arlekar, Kalraj Mishra, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, L.A. Ganesan, K. Names like Rajasekaran, Laxman Acharya, Ram Naik, Kesari Nath Tripathi became leaders of Bharatiya Janata politics through association. Whereas, there are great leaders like V. Shanmuganathan, Jagadish Mukhi, Acharya Devvrat, whose identity was pure association. Apart from them, there are many people who were only in BJP while doing ABVP and Jana Sangh politics and became volunteers of Bharatiya Janata Party. For example – whether it's Chhattisgarh Governor, Odisha BJP big name Biswapun Harichandran or Goa's current Governor P.S. Sridhar Pillai. Whereas Gulabchand Kataria, Mritula Sinha, Shivpratap Shukla, Anandiben Patel, C. Vidyasagar Rao, K. It is necessary to mention the names of people like Haribabu who became the symbol of Bharatiya Janata Party in their respective states. Eighth point – Coming from other parties: Whose parent party is not BJP (7 names) On the one hand, we certainly see many people with the ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Jan Sangam as governors. But on the other hand, in these 10 years some names have been governors and their parent party is not BJP. That is, he started his politics in parties like Congress and Janata Dal. But over time he came to BJP and settled down. Be it Banwarilal Purohit from Rajasthan, who came to Raj Bhavan through Congress-BJP-Congress-BJP or Jagdeep Thangar who became BJP through Janata Dal and Congress. Similarly, Najma Heptullah from Madhya Pradesh became the minority face of the Bharatiya Janata Party and later became Governor of Manipur, whose parent party was not the BJP but the Congress. Apart from them, Satyapal Malik who joined BJP from Janata Dal, Faku Chauhan who was once associated with Bahujan Samaj Party, Anasuika Uike who was once a prominent name of Madhya Pradesh Congress and Arif Mohammed who made his mark in Uttar Pradesh. The politics of the Pradeshiya Congress later changed in favor of the politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Thus, despite being labeled as a different party, these 7 names have reached the Raj Bhavan in the Modi government. Ninth point – Women got 10 percent seat as in other professions, presence of women in Indian politics is very low. In such a situation, whenever a woman is appointed to a high post, there is a debate going on for a few days about what has happened so far and what needs to be done on this front. Put in this perspective, only 7 of the Governors appointed in Modi's first two terms were women. In this, the names of Anasuya Uike, Mridula Sinha, Draupadi Murmu, Anandiben Patel, Najma Heptullah, Tamilisai Soundararajan, Baby Rani Maurya have been included in the list. Until recently, the country had two women governors, with Anasuya Uike as the governor of Manipur. But now the additional charge of Manipur has been given to Laxman Acharya, leaving only one governor in the country – Anandiben Patel. 10th point – Only 3 Muslim faces apart from women are often talked about representation of Muslims in the minority category. This conversation becomes more relevant when not a single Muslim name is found in the list of MPs of the ruling party. That too when the population of this segment is close to 14 percent as per 2011 census. If we look at the first two terms of Narendra Modi, it appears that during this period only 3 Muslim faces reached the post of Governor. One of them was Najma Heptullah, apart from them Arif Mohammad Khan and Syed Abdul Naseer. Nasir is currently the Governor of Andhra Pradesh. Khan, meanwhile, has been serving as the governor of Kerala and is often in the headlines for his clashes with the state's ruling Left Front government. As we mentioned in the first part of this story, Khan is about to complete 5 years of his tenure. After that whether he will continue as governor or not remains to be seen.