New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Yumnam Khemchand Singh, former Manipur cabinet minister, is set to become Manipur’s new chief minister, ending a year of political uncertainty.
On Tuesday evening, at a meeting of Manipur MLAs from the BJP and its allies in Delhi, Khemchand was elected the leader of the BJP legislature party. His name was proposed by former chief minister N. Biren Singh.
Khemchand, who is from the faction opposed to Biren Singh, served as the assembly speaker in Manipur between 2017 and 2022 during the BJP government’s first term. In Biren’s second term, he held the portfolios of municipal administration and housing development; rural development and panchayati raj; and education.
The legislators of the BJP and its allies will have to endorse Khemchand’s name before he takes oath as the chief minister.
BJP sources told ThePrint that it was also decided to have two deputy chief ministers—one from the tribal Kuki-Zo community, Nemcha Kipgen, and the second from the Naga People’s Front (NPF), a BJP ally to give representation to both the communities. The NPF will soon announce the party’s MLA who will be the deputy CM.
Additionally, the party has finalised the names of five cabinet ministers, including BJP MLA Govindas Konthoujam, who will be the home minister. Govindas is considered close to Biren Singh.
The BJP central leadership’s decision to restore popular government in Manipur and elect the CM brings to a close the political uncertainty in the state before the President’s Rule ends. The Manipur Assembly was suspended after ex-CM Biren Singh resigned amid political instability last February.
President’s Rule was imposed in the state on 13 February 2025.
From ‘threat’ to new govt
A threat from a section of BJP MLAs to back the Opposition Congress’s no-confidence motion in the state assembly—potentially toppling their own government—pushed the party’s central leadership to demand Singh’s resignation as CM on 9 February last year.
The BJP’s Manipur unit has been riddled with factionalism in the aftermath of the ethnic conflict. Party sources said that was one of the reasons for the Centre’s reluctance to restore a popular government earlier, despite the BJP being in a majority. There were two factions within the state BJP —one backing Biren Singh and the other opposing him—the sources added.
Manipur saw violent ethnic clashes between the two main communities—the Meiteis, who are predominantly Hindus, and the Kukis, who are tribal Christians—on 3 May 2023, deeply dividing the state on ethnic lines.
Since then, the state has remained segregated, with those from the Kuki-Zo community leaving the Imphal Valley and fleeing to the hills, and the non-tribal Meiteis, who had been living in the hills, returning to the Valley.
The conflict has so far claimed more than 250 lives and left over 60,000 people across the two communities displaced.
On Monday, the BJP parliamentary board appointed its national general secretary, Tarun Chugh, as the central observer for the election of the legislative party leader in Manipur, thereby setting the stage for the restoration of a popular government in Manipur.
On Saturday, the BJP’s central leadership summoned all NDA MLAs from the state—Meiteis, Kukis, and Nagas—to Delhi for the meeting.
The BJP remains in a majority in the 60-member Manipur assembly, which has 59 MLAs since the death of National People’s Party (NPP) legislator N. Kayisii last January.
BJP MLAs, including seven from the Kuki-Zo community, hold 32 assembly seats.
After the 2022 assembly elections, five Janata Dal (United) MLAs also joined the BJP, taking the party’s strength to 37 MLAs effectively.
The remaining MLAs include six from Conrad Sangma’s National People’s Party (NPP), formerly an ally of the BJP. In November 2024, the NPP withdrew support from the Biren Singh government, citing the conflict. Though no longer with the BJP in Manipur, the NPP continues to support the BJP at the Centre.
Another former BJP ally, the Kuki People’s Alliance, has two MLAs in the Manipur assembly.
There are also five MLAs from the Naga People’s Front (NPF), three Independents, five from Congress, and one from the JD(U).
Over the past four months, the BJP central leadership has held several meetings with its MLAs, including those from the Kuki-Zo community and also NPP and NPF, among its allies, to assess the situation and whether it’s conducive to government formation.
What had added to the Centre’s challenges in restoring a popular government is the hard position taken by the party’s seven Kuki-Zo MLAs, who had conveyed to the central leadership that they would participate in forming a government, only in case of a written assurance that their demand for a Union Territory with a legislature would be met before the current assembly’s tenure ended in March 2027.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also Read: BJP starts setting the stage to restore its govt in Manipur as clock ticks on President’s Rule