Ramesh Bais took oath as the 22nd Governor of Maharashtra, replacing Bhagat Singh Koshyari. The acting Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court SV Gangapurwala administered the oath of office and secrecy to Bias at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai on Saturday.
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was also present during the ceremony.
Former Jharkhand and Tripura Governor Ramesh Bais was appointed as the Governor of Maharashtra after President Droupadi Murmu accepted Bhagat Singh Koshyari's resignation last week.
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Koshyari’s term since 2019 had been mired in controversies. His resignation came a month after he expressed his desire to leave the post to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Who is Ramesh Bias?
Ramesh Bias was born on August 2, 1947, in Raipur, Madhya Pradesh. He completed his higher secondary education at BSE, Bhopal, and later pursued BSc from Bhopal to become an agriculturist.
In 1978, he was elected to the Municipal Corporation of Raipur for the first time. In 1980, he won the MP Assembly election from Mandir Hasod constituency of Raipur, which he lost in 1985 to Satyanarayan Sharma of the Congress.
Bias was elected for the first time to the Lok Sabha in 1989 from Raipur. He was re-elected consecutively for four terms.
He served as the Union Minister of State in the second and third Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinets holding several portfolios like Steel, Mines, Chemicals and Fertilizers, Information, and Broadcasting.
He also served as Minister of State (Independent charge) for Mines and Environment and Forests till May 2004.
In 2019, the BJP denied him a Lok Sabha ticket triggering a wave of dissent in the party’s state unit.
However, he was soon compensated with the post of Tripura governor after BJP returned to power in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He succeeded Kaptan Singh Solanki as the 18th Governor of Tripura and served from July 2019 to July 2021.
Prior to his appointment as the Maharashtra Governor, Bias was serving as the 10th Governor of Jharkhand since July 14, 2021.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
