Imphal: After almost one full year, Manipur is set to have a chief minister.
Senior BJP leader and former state cabinet minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh has been chosen to fill the post which has been lying vacant since N Biren Singh resigned on February 9, 2025 following a prolonged period of ethnic violence in the northeastern state.
A few days later, President’s rule was imposed in Manipur.
The 62-year-old Khemchand was elected leader of Manipur BJP legislature party, following a meeting held in New Delhi.
He will now have to get the endorsement of all legislators from BJP’s NDA partners so that he can be formally elected legislature party leader of the coalition in Manipur Assembly.
#WATCH | Delhi | On BJP leader Yumnam Khemchand Singh elected as the legislature party leader, BJP MLA Tongbram Robindro Singh says, “Everything will be good…All decisions being made are for the benefit of the public of Manipur…” pic.twitter.com/RWMAOi1kJ3
— ANI (@ANI) February 3, 2026
The ongoing President’s rule in Manipur expires 10 days later.
BJP had won 32 seats in the 60-member Manipur Assembly in the 2022 state election. Five of the six JD(U) legislators later defected to BJP, pushing their strength up to 37.
Khemchand, from Meitei community, is a two-time MLA. Elected from Singjamei Assembly seat in 2017, he again won from there in 2022.
In March 2017, he was elected Speaker of the Manipur Legislative Assembly, holding the post for a full five-year term.
After the 2022 Assembly elections, Khemchand was appointed minister in Biren Singh’s cabinet. Khemchand held several portfolios — Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Municipal Administration, Housing Development and Education.
He continued to serve as a minister in these departments until the imposition of President’s rule.
Khemchand started his political career alongside Biren in 2002, as part of the Democratic Revolutionary People’s Party which came into being following an agitation by Meitei groups against the India government’s extension of its 1997 ceasefire with the Naga insurgent group NSCN(IM).
Years later, Khemchand was among BJP leaders who voiced their dissent against then-CM Biren’s leadership.
