HP CM accords warm farewell to outgoing governor; Kavinder Gupta to take oath today

Shimla: Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Monday accorded a warm farewell to the outgoing governor Shiv Pratap Shukla at Lok Bhawan, who will now take over as governor of Telangana later this week. Shukla had taken over as the 29th governor of Himachal Pradesh on Feb 18, 2023.The ceremony was attended by deputy chief minister Mukesh Agnihotri, leader of the opposition Jairam Thakur, vidhan sabha speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania, cabinet ministers, public representatives, senior officers and prominent citizens. During the ceremony, Shukla was presented with a ceremonial guard of honour in recognition of his service to the state. Those present on the occasion extended their best wishes to Shukla for his future responsibilities and appreciated his guidance and contributions during his tenure in Himachal Pradesh. The new governor-designate of Himachal Pradesh and former lieutenant governor of the Union Territory of Ladakh, Kavinder Gupta, reached Shimla on Monday evening. He will be administered the oath as the 30th governor of the hill state by Chief Justice Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia on Tuesday at Lok Bhawan. Born on Dec 2, 1959, in Jammu, Gupta is a veteran public leader and administrator with more than four decades of experience in governance and public service. The family moved to Sangrur in Punjab in 1963, where Gupta began his schooling. He later studied in Ferozepur and completed his graduation in 1979 from govt college, Gurdaspur. He became associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the early 1970s. During the Emergency period (1975–1977), he was imprisoned along with senior RSS leaders in Gurdaspur and Patiala jails due to his activism. Between 1978 and 1979, he served as secretary of the Punjab unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). In 1988, Gupta was appointed district president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in Jammu and Kashmir and later served as the organisation's state president from 1993 to 1998. His electoral career began at the municipal level when he became the first mayor of the Jammu municipal corporation, serving three consecutive terms from 2005 to 2010. In 2014, he was elected as BJP MLA from the Gandhi Nagar constituency and later became speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly in 2015. He also served as deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 2018. Gupta was appointed third lieutenant governor of Ladakh in July 2025 and, on March 5, was named the governor of Himachal Pradesh.