NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday named new governors for Jharkhand and five north-eastern states. The appointees include Droupadi Murmu in Jharkhand, JP Rajkhowa in Arunachal Pradesh, Lt Gen (retd) Nirbhay Sharma in Mizoram, Syed Ahmed in Manipur, Tathagata Roy in Tripura and V Shanmuganathan in Meghalaya.

Odisha minister and BJP ex-legislator Droupadi Murmu will be the governor of Jharkhand, replacing incumbent Syed Ahmed who will serve as Manipur governor for the rest of his term. BJP national executive member V Shanmuganathan has been appointed as governor of Meghalaya, which is now under the additional charge of West Bengal governor Kesri Nath Tripathi. Former IAS officer and ex-chief secretary of Assam J P Rajkhowa will take over as governor of Arunachal Pradesh, replacing Lt Gen (retd) Nirbhay Sharma who has been moved to Mizoram. Mizoram, incidentally, has seen the appointment of seven governors since the Modi government came to power.

The gubernatorial appointments in many north-eastern states are part of the Modi government's initiative to fill up key vacant posts. On Monday, the government named ICICI Bank chairman KV Kamath as the BRICS Bank chief. Only last week, it had appointed former Gujarat chief secretary A K Jyoti as the election commissioner. Even the Union Public Service Commission saw the appointment of two members, Arvind Saxena and Pradeep Kumar Joshi, over the past four days.