Tathagata Roy (born 14 September 1945) is an Indian politician who served as the Governor of Tripura from 2015 to 2018 and the Governor of Meghalaya from 2018 to 2020. He has served as the president of the West Bengal state unit of

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

and as a member of the BJP National Executive. Roy briefly had additional charge of the office of the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh from July 2016 till August 2016, during which he handled the ouster of Chief Minister Kalikho Pul following a Supreme Court judgement, and swore in Pema Khandu as the new Chief Minister. An engineer by training, Roy is a former professor of

construction engineering Construction engineering, also known as construction operations, is a professional subdiscipline of civil engineering that deals with the designing, planning, construction, and operations management of infrastructure such as roadways, tunnels, bri ...

and the founder-head of the department at Jadavpur University.

Life and works

Tathagata Roy was born on 14 September 1945 in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal until 1937, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule in India, Company rule and later a Provinces o ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

(present-day

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

) to Debesh Chandra Roy and Anila (née Dutta). He had a distinguished academic career, having been ranked 6th in the Higher secondary examination of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education as a student of St. Lawrence High School, Kolkata and a recipient of the Jagadis Bose National Science Talent Search Scholarship. He studied Civil Engineering in Bengal Engineering College Sibpur (currently Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur), when it was affiliated with the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

. Later he joined

Indian Railways Indian Railways is a state-owned enterprise that is organised as a departmental undertaking of the Ministry of Railways (India), Ministry of Railways of the Government of India and operates India's national railway system. , it manages the fou ...

Service of Engineers.Life-Sketch of Tathagata Roy, President, BJP, West Bengal
BJP Today, 1 January--15, 2003 - Vol. 12, No. 01. He worked as General Manager, RITES and as Chief Engineer - Design of Metro Railways, Calcutta. He also holds a Law Degree of Calcutta University. Roy took voluntary retirement from the Railways in 1990. He then joined Jadavpur University as professor and founder head of the Department of Construction Engineering at its new campus at Salt Lake, Calcutta. He is a former Chairman Board of Governors of TTTI Calcutta (2000 to 2005). He is a fellow of the Institution of Engineers and life member of the Indian Council of Arbitration. He functioned as an arbitrator in a number of engineering contracts until he was appointed Governor of Tripura. Roy was felicitated as an 'Eminent Engineering Personality' by the Institution of Engineers (India) at the Engineering Congress held at Guwahati in December 2015 and awarded the distinguished Alumni award by Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, formerly Bengal Engineering College Sibpur during the Second Annual Convocation of the institute on 4 March 2016. He was also conferred the degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) by the Shri Jagdishprasad Jhabarmull Tibrewala University, Vidyanagari, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, at a special convocation at Mumbai in May 2016. He was further conferred the degree of Doctor of Engineering (Honoris Causa) by the National Institute of Technology, Agartala, Tripura, at the convocation in November 2016.

Politics

Roy was attracted towards

Hindutva Hindutva (; ) is a Far-right politics, far-right political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Da ...

, the ideology of

Hindu nationalism Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of political thought, based on the native social and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" is a simplistic translation of . It is better descri ...

and joined the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS,, ) is an Indian right-wing politics, right-wing, Hindutva, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar ( ...

(RSS) in 1986. After leaving government service he joined the BJP in 1990. He replaced Ashim Ghosh as president of the

state unit of the BJP in 2002 and was succeeded by Sukumar Banerjee in 2006. Roy stood as a candidate for election to the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is Bicameralism, bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by a ...

in 2009, standing in the North

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

constituency of West Bengal. He did not win. He stood as the BJP candidate in the Kolkata Dakshin (South Kolkata) parliamentary constituency for the

2014 Indian general election General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha. With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 ...

, earning 25.29% of the total votes polled. He was appointed Governor of Tripura on 12 May 2015. He was transferred and appointed Governor of Meghalaya in August 2018. He served till December 2019 and, after a brief medical leave, again from January 2020 until 18 August 2020 completing his five-year tenure on gubernatorial post, handing over the charge to Satya Pal Malik.

Governorship

Roy was appointed as the 16th Governor of Tripura on 20 May 2015. He served in this role until 25 August 2018. On 27 August 2018, he was given additional charge as the Governor of Meghalaya, following the end of Ganga Prasad’s term. He served in this dual role until 25 October 2019. After that, he was formally appointed as the full-time 19th Governor of Meghalaya and served until 18 August 2020.

Publications

Roy writes extensively, mostly socio-political articles, both in English and in his native Bengali. He has been published in The Statesman, BJP Today, Desh (Bengali fortnightly) and several others. He has authored seven books: *''Bampontha Bhayankari: Banglay o Bideshe'' (Bengali) (Mitra & Ghosh, Kolkata, 2020) * ''Bharatkeshari Yugpurush Syamaprasad'' (Bengali) (Mitra & Ghosh, Kolkata, 2018) *''Ja Chhilo Amar Desh'' (Bengali) (Mitra & Ghosh, Kolkata, 2016) *''My People, Uprooted: The Exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh'' (Synergy Books India, New Delhi, 2016), earlier published under the title ''A Suppressed Chapter in History: The Exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh, 1947-2006'', (Bookwell, Delhi, 2007) *"Syama Prasad Mookerjee: Life and Times", (Penguin/Viking, Delhi, 2018), earlier published under title ''The Life and Times of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee'', (Prabhat Prakashan, Delhi, 2012). Also translated into Hindi under title ''Apratim Nayak Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee'' (Prabhat Prakashan, Delhi, 2012) *'' Tathagata Rayer Nirbachito Probondho Songroho'' (Bengali), Vivekananda Sahitya Kendra, Kolkata, 2008 *''Engineering Contracts in India: Law, Practice and Management'', (Bharat Book Agency, Calcutta, 1990)

Family

Roy is the elder brother of Saugata Roy, the

All India Trinamool Congress The All India Trinamool Congress (; AITC), simply known as Trinamool Congress, is an Indian political party that is mainly influential in the state of West Bengal. It was founded by Mamata Banerjee on 1 January 1998 as a breakaway faction f ...

MP and former Minister of State for Urban Development. He is married to Anuradha, who taught English at B.K.C. College, Kolkata. They have two daughters, Malini (Roy) and Madhura (Khedekar), both of whom are married and live in the United States.

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, Tathagata 1945 births Living people Engineers from West Bengal Indian civil engineers Indian Hindus University of Calcutta alumni Academic staff of Jadavpur University National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2014 Indian general election Governors of Meghalaya Governors of Tripura Governors of Arunachal Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from West Bengal