Ajay Kumar Bhalla appointed as Manipur governor, Arif Mohammed Khan reassigned to Bihar

President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday appointed former Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla as the governor of Manipur.

Bhalla, a 1984-batch Indian Administrative Service officer, was the Union home secretary between August 22, 2019, and August 22, 2024.

Lakshman Prasad Acharya has held the additional charge of Manipur since becoming the Assam governor in July.

At least 258 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zo-Hmars communities in May 2023. There was an uptick in violence in the state in November.

Manipur had not had a full-time governor since July 31, even as the state continued to be gripped by violence.

Apart from Manipur, new governors were also appointed for four other states.

Arif Mohammed Khan, who was the Kerala governor since 2019, was on Tuesday reassigned to Bihar.

Bihar Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar was shifted to Kerala.

Khan, a former Union minister, has had frequent run-ins with the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala. Arlekar is a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Goa who previously served as the governor of Himachal Pradesh.

Bihar, where the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is in power, is expected to head for Assembly elections in or before November 2025.

The president also accepted the resignation of Raghubar Das as the governor of Odisha. Das is a BJP leader and a former chief minister of Jharkhand.

Das will be replaced in Odisha by the Mizoram Governor Hari Babu Kambhampati, a BJP leader from Andhra Pradesh.

Former Army chief General (Retd) Vijay Kumar Singh was appointed as Mizoram’s governor. Singh was a Union minister between 2014 and June this year. He did not contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.