New Delhi, Aug 5: Former Jammu and Kashmir governor Satyapal Malik passed away today after a prolonged illness.
He served as the governor of four states — Bihar (2017), Jammu and Kashmir (2018), Goa (2019), and Meghalaya (2020). But his most impactful assignment commenced in August 2018, when he was named the governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
The tenure saw two significant events — the 2019 Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF personnel lost their lives, and the August 5, 2019, revocation of Article 370 and the division of the erstwhile state into two Union Territories. Malik was the last governor of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Malik, 79, who had been hospitalised for some time, passed away in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday, which marks the sixth anniversary of Article 370 revocation.
From J&K, he had been relocated to Goa, where his relationship with the state government soured. His term in Goa came to an abrupt halt, and he was posted to Meghalaya, his final assignment.
During his last days of life, Malik was also named in the CBI chargesheets filed in May this year in connection with the alleged corruption in the Rs 2,200 crore Kiru Hydro power project.
Malik was born on July 24, 1946, in the Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh.
His political journey started as a student leader with socialist ideology, but his career was later characterised by party hopping as he switched from the Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD) to the Congress, then the Janata Dal, and finally the BJP.
He was first elected to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in 1974 on Charan Singh’s BKD party.
Malik was elected twice to the Rajya Sabha — from 1980 to 1986 and then from 1986 to 1989 — before he decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections on the Janata Dal ticket. He won the Aligarh parliamentary seat.
The then-VP Singh government appointed him as the Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism.