Name : Banwarilal Purohit
Age : 77 Born April 16, 1940

He started his political career by Joining All India Forward Bloc.

Then after a shot stint he switched to Congress at the age of 37 and in 1977 and was elected to Maharashtra Assembly on a Congress ticket in 1979 and 1980. He was elected twice from Congress, in 1984 and 1989.

He was ousted from Congress when he took part in kar seva in Ayodhya in 1991, when he was still a member of the party.

Then he joined BJP But his realtion there soured soon and then Purohit left BJP in 1999 after a span of eight years.

He returned to the Indian National Congress and unsuccessfully contested for Lok Sabha seat from Ramtek in 1999.

Then Banwarilal went on to launch his own party Vidarba Rajya Party and contested Lok Sabha elections from Nagpur. He again contested elections in 2009 for BJP from Nagpur district but lost against Congress’ Vilas Muttemwar.

Purohit is currently the managing editor of English daily Hitavada, which was founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1911. Purohit and company took the ownership of the newspaper from former Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla in 1978.

He was embroiled in high-drama controversy in 2007 when he claimed he had arranged an hour-long meeting between the then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras and then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1989. He claimed that Gandhi had forged a secret pact with the RSS to permit Shilanyas and construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya in exchange for support from RSS to the Congress in the 1989 elections.

In August 2016, Purohit was appointed as Governor of Assam by replacing Padmanabha Acharya who had additional in-charge of Assam.

In September 30, 2017 he was appointed as Governor of Tamil Nadu President Ram Nath Kovind appointed Banwari Lal Purohit as Tamil Nadu governor on Saturday.

It is the first time that the state has got a full time governor after K Rosaiah retired in August 2016.

It is remarkable to note that short stint of care taking governor VidyasagarRao for a year has marked with Jayalalithaa death mystery and appointment of three Chief minsters of ADMK in a year.