The appointment of retired bureaucrat and BJP leader KJ Alphons as Chandigarh administrator has been put on hold following objections from the Shiromani Akali Dal government in Punjab. If the proposed appointment of 63-year Alphons, a former IAS officer of the 1979 batch from Kerala, is put through, it may end a 32-year practice of the Punjab governor holding additional charge of the union territory. Alphons is best known for his demolition drive against illegal encroachments in the national capital when he was heading the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in the 1990s. He quit bureaucracy in 2006 and joined the BJP in 2011.