
Goa Governor Satya Pal Malik was transferred to Meghalaya on Tuesday, where he will be replacing Tathagata Roy, who completed his five-year tenure on the gubernatorial post. A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said Malik, who earlier served as the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, is transferred and appointed as Governor of Meghalaya.
Governor of Maharashtra Bhagat Singh Koshyari has been asked to discharge the functions of Governor of Goa in addition to his own duties, the communique said. Malik takes over from Roy, who completed his five-year tenure by serving as governor of Tripura for three years and the remaining in Meghalaya.
Malik's first prominent stint as a politician was as a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly between 1974 and 1977. He represented Uttar Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha from 1980 to 1986 and from 1986 to 1989. He was a member of the ninth Lok Sabha from Aligarh, from 1989 to 1991, as a member of Janata Dal. He was the Governor of Bihar from October 2017 to August 2018. On March 21, 2018, he was also given additional charge to serve as Governor of Odisha up to May 28, 2018.
Satya Pal Malik, who has served as the 18th Governor of Goa was appointed on October 25, 2019 by President Ram Nath Kovind. He also served as the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir between August 2018 and October 2019. The decision to abrogate Article 370 which gave special status to J&K, was taken in August 2019, during his tenure.
The appointments made by President Ram Nath Kovind in his communique will come into effect from the dates they assume charge of their respective offices.
Malik's predecessor, Tathagata Roy, had a long political career with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which included a stint as the president of its West Bengal state unit (2002–2006). He was also a member of the BJP National Executive, the party's central policy-making body, from 2002 until 2015.
An engineer by training, Roy is a former professor and the founder-head of the Department of Construction Engineering at Jadavpur University.