J&K Deputy CM to Raj Bhavan: Old BJP hand Kavinder Gupta is new Ladakh Lt Governor
No stranger to J&K politics, Gupta has a long association with the RSS, having joined the organisation as a minor. Like many in the RSS, he too was jailed during the Emergency.
Gupta was the secretary of the Punjab wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) between 1978-79 and headed the J&K unit of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the BJP's youth wing, from 1993-98.
He ventured into politics at the civic level and was Jammu mayor for three consecutive terms between 2005 and 2010. He was also J&K's general secretary for a brief period.
He became an MLA after defeating then sitting minister Raman Bhalla from the Gandhinagar seat in the 2014 J&K Assembly polls.
After the BJP forged a post-poll alliance with the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and became a part of the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government, Gupta was unanimously elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. He was the first-ever BJP Speaker of the J&K Assembly.
After Sayeed's death in April 2016, his daughter Mehbooba Mufti took over the PDP and was sworn in as CM. Gupta graduated from Speaker to deputy CM in April 2018 — but that was short-lived. The BJP ended ties with PDP in June 2018, leading to the collapse of Mufti's government.
Following this, when the Assembly was under suspended animation, the Centre abrogated Article 370 in J&K, stripping it of its special status.
Gupta has since maintained a low-profile but has remained involved with J&K politics.
He has had a brief brush with controversies too in the past. In 2018, while he was Speaker, Gupta blamed the Rohingya community for the terror attack on Sunjwan Army Station. Following protests from the Opposition benches, his remarks were later expunged from the Assembly proceedings.
In April 2018, barely hours after taking oath as Deputy CM, Gupta called the gang rape and killing of a minor Bakerwal girl a 'small' thing. 'Such challenges (as the incident) are faced by the government. It should not have been given all this hype… It was a small thing and we have to think over it so that such incidents are not repeated,' he said.
In 2020, he described the transfer of state land under the now-scrapped Roshni Act as 'land jihad'. Subsequently, allegations of him allegedly occupying tracts of the J&K Revenue Department's land in Khasra Girdawari had come to light. Gupta has denied these claims.
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