Vinai Kumar Saxena defended making PM Modi face of the Khadi brand five years ago. (File)
Vinai Kumar Saxena was named Delhi's new Lieutenant-Governor on Monday, days after Anil Baijal resigned from the post citing "personal reasons".
Here are five things to know about Vinai Kumar Saxena:
Not a career bureaucrat, Mr Saxena is the first corporate administrator to be selected for the post. Since 2015 he has been chairman of the state-owned Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), which sells cotton apparel and other home-grown consumer goods under the Khadi brand.
He is credited with major reforms at the company, growing its income by 248 per cent and generating employment for 40 lakh people, according to news agency ANI. It was during his tenure, that KVIC clocked a turnover of Rs 1.15 lakh crore in 2021-22 - a record for the company and India's Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector.
He also had a brush with controversy at the company when it was accused of replacing Independence icon Mahatma Gandhi with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the 2017 face of the brand. "He (PM Modi) is khadi's biggest brand ambassador," Mr Saxena had told the media then, defending the move.
Mr Saxena graduated from Kanpur University in 1981 and started his career in 1984 as an Assistant Officer with the industrial conglomerate JK Group in Rajasthan. He rose through the ranks in the company, heading major divisions.
Since 2015, he has been nominated to several prestigious committees and panels including the National Committee to Commemorate the 75th anniversary of India's Independence, the Padma Awards Selection Committee, and "Member of University Court" of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
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