The funeral service of Nagaland Governor La Ganesan was held with full state honours on 16th August 2025 in Chennai. Governor La Ganesan, 80, passed away on 15th August 2025.
The mortal remains of the late Governor were kept at Kannadasan Grounds, T. Nagar, for the public to pay their last respects where the Chief Minister of Nagaland, Dr Neiphiu Rio paid a floral tribute on behalf of the Government of Nagaland. The state funeral and cremation was held with full State honours at Besant Nagar Electric Crematorium, Chennai at 5:00 PM which was also attended by the Chief Minister, Dr Neiphiu Rio, Deputy Chief Ministers, Y. Patton and T. R. Zeliang, Chief Secretary, Sentiyanger Imchen IAS, Commissioner & Secretary to the Governor, Thavaseelan IAS, Former Commissioner & Secretary to the Governor, Rajesh Soundararajan IAS and DG Nagaland Rupin Sharma IPS among others.
La. Ganesan was born into an Orthodox Brahmin family in the temple town of Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu in the year 1945. At the age of 9 years, his father, Lakshmi Raghava Iyer, a respectable businessman of the town, passed away. After completing his Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC), he took up a government job in the Revenue Department as Revenue Settlement Inspector.
Being wedded to the cause of the motherland, he preferred to be a bachelor all through his life and he chose to be a Pracharak of the RSS in order to serve the nation. Thus, he resigned from his government job after serving for nine years and took the path of a Pracharak since 16.02.1970.
Through his tireless efforts in serving the people and the community, he was very successful in the public life. On being entrusted with the task of broadening the BJP party base in Tamil Nadu in 1991, he strengthened the party at the grass roots levels and gave recognition to the party among the people of the state. He served as Organising Secretary of State BJP, National Secretary, All India Vice President and was appointed as State President of Tamil Nadu. Due to his untiring efforts in public life and service, he was nominated as Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha from Bhopal constituency and served for a brief period of 18 months. He was a member of the National Executive Committee of BJP since 1991.
He was the editor of the Tamil mouth piece of the party ‘Ore Naadu’ (One Nation). He also contributed article and columns to mainstream magazines. He was the founder President of ‘Pottramarai’ (Golden Lotus), an Association working for facilitating and fostering Tamil scholars all over the world. Being well travelled all over the country, Ganesan was well versed with different languages including Hindi, Tamil, English, Telegu and Malayalam. He was gifted in music and could compose lyrics instantly on various themes.
As a person, simplicity, honesty, humility, benevolence and patriotism defined Ganesan so aptly. He was also gifted as an eloquent orator, with a touch of humour and a powerful debater and was therefore a respected and formidable public figure.
Ganesan was appointed as the Governor of Manipur by the President of India from 27.08.2021 till 19.02.2023 and was given additional charge as Governor of West Bengal from 18.07.2022 to 17.11.2022.
Ganesan took oath as the Governor of Nagaland on 20.02.2023 and was serving the people of the state and the country as a whole till he breathed his last on the evening of 15th August 2025 at Chennai.
In respect to his service, the Nagaland government declared a seven-day state mourning period from 16th to 22nd August, 2025. During this time, the National Flag will be flown at half-mast on all government buildings in Nagaland and public entertainment events have been cancelled.
(DIPR)
