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ARIF MOHAMMAD KHAN NEW KERALA GOVERNOR

AMN

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari has been appointed as the new Governor of Maharashtra while former Union Minister Arif Mohammed Khan will take the responsibility of Kerala governor.

Former Union Minister and BJP leader, Bandaru Dattatraya will be the new Governor of Himachal Pradesh in place of Kalraj Mishra who has been given the charge of Governor of Rajasthan.

Former Tamil Nadu BJP chief, Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan is the new Governor of Telangana.

President Ram Nath Kovind today approved these appointments.

Khan, 68, who replaces former Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam in Kerala Raj Bhavan, has been a vocal critic of the practice of instant triple talaq and calling for reforms in the Muslim personal laws for long.

Khan’s speech in Parliament in 1985 in the wake of the Shah Bano judgement extending the Rajiv Gandhi government’s initial support to it was much acclaimed.

However, when the Rajiv Gandhi government did a U-turn under alleged pressure from Muslim clerics and brought a bill to nullify the Supreme Court order, he resigned from the ministry.

The Uttar Pradesh politician later joined the BJP but remained inactive since 2007.

Recently, when the Modi government brought a bill to criminalise the practice of instant triple talaq, Khan supported it.

In the Shah Bano case, the Supreme Court had delivered a judgment favouring maintenance given to an aggrieved divorced Muslim woman.

“The above appointments will take effect from the dates they assume charge of their respective offices,” the Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said.