After a protracted illness, former governor of Jammu and Kashmir Satyapal Malik died on Tuesday at the age of 79. He was receiving medical care at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi when he passed away at around 1:00 pm.
Malik's most well-known role was serving as the final governor of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir from August 2018 to October 2019. The historic decision on August 5, 2019, to revoke the state's special status and abrogate Article 370, marked his tenure as governor. His passing occurs on the sixth anniversary of that momentous occasion.
Malik was appointed Governor of Goa after his tenure in Jammu and Kashmir, and he subsequently held the position of Governor of Meghalaya until October 2022. In the 1970s, Malik started out in politics as a socialist. Before joining the BJP in 2004, he had previously been a member of the Congress, the Chaudhary Charan Singh-led Janata Dal, and the Chaudhary Charan Singh-led Bhartiya Kranti Dal.
In 1974, he was elected to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly on a Bharatiya Kranti Dal ticket, representing Baghpat. After serving as the Lok Dal's general secretary, he was elected as an Uttar Pradesh MP to the Rajya Sabha in 1980 and 1989. He served as a Congress MP for his second term in the Upper House.
Anger over the Bofors scam caused him to leave the Rajya Sabha and the Congress in 1987. He then founded his own political party, Jan Morcha, which in 1988 merged with the Janata Dal. He was elected as a Janata Dal candidate to the Lok Sabha from Aligarh in 1989, and he briefly held the position of Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism in 1990. He joined the BJP in 2004 and ran from Baghpat in the Lok Sabha elections, losing to Ajit Singh, the leader of the RLD at the time.
Malik was chosen to head a parliamentary committee looking into the land acquisition bill during the first term of the Narendra Modi administration. The government put the proposed reform on hold after his committee made a recommendation against it.
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