An agriculturist at heart, engineer by training and a politician by choice — that is Manoj Sinha, the new Lieutenant Governor of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, for you. The appointment, that came on the first anniversary of the scrapping of J&K’s special status, marks a shift from a bureaucrat administrator to a political one.

Sinha’s appointment came late Wednesday night after incumbent former bureaucrat GC Murmu quit, reportedly to take over as the new Comptroller and Auditor General, the post that falls vacant this week.

Sinha, 61, who has B.Tech and M.Tech degree in civil engineering, took to politics during his college days and was the students union president of the Benaras Hindu University (BHU) in 1982. He is known to take a very keen interest in agriculture, is a silent performer who maintains a low profile and a firm administrator.

He successfuly contested the Lok Sabha election from Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh for the first time in 1996 and repeated the term in 1999 and 2014, when BJP swept to power for the first time. He has also served as minister of communications and minister of state for Railways in the 2014 Cabinet of PM Narendra Modi. In July 2016, during the second cabinet reshuffle, he was also made Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Communications Ministry.

The appointment comes at a time when elections are being discussed in Jammu and Kashmir. Analysts say a politician-administrator may be able to reach out to state politicians better in such a scenario.