New Delhi/Imphal, Feb 3 (IANS) Manipur Assembly’s former Speaker Yumnam Khemchand Singh will be the state’s next Chief Minister, it was announced on Tuesday.

The BJP legislature party, after a meeting in New Delhi, announced that Khemchand Singh has been elected as the party’s Legislature Party Leader and will take over as Chief Minister of Manipur, where President’s Rule has been in force since February 13 last year following the resignation of then-Chief Minister N. Biren Singh amid prolonged ethnic violence.

A member of the majority Meitei community, Singh is a former Rural Development Minister and was elected to the Manipur Assembly from the Singjamei constituency as a BJP candidate in both the 2017 and 2022 Assembly elections.

In a significant gesture since ethnic violence erupted in Manipur in May 2023, the 61-year-old BJP leader recently visited the tribal-majority hill districts of Ukhrul and Kamjong on Monday, marking the first outreach by any Meitei leader to these areas since the conflict began.

After hectic parleys, the BJP on Monday initiated the process to elect a new Chief Minister in Manipur, and the party’s Parliamentary Board appointed national General Secretary Tarun Chugh as the Central Observer for the election of the Legislative Party Leader in the state.

Following the directions of the central BJP leadership, a large number of MLAs belonging to the BJP and its supporting parties reached New Delhi earlier this week.

Biren Singh, Assembly Speaker Thokchom Satyabrata Singh, Khemchand Singh and state BJP President Adhikarimayum Sharda Devi accompanied the party MLAs in the national capital.

“We are expecting that the issue of government formation will be discussed,” Sharda Devi told the media before leaving Imphal for New Delhi.

The Union government imposed President’s Rule in Manipur on February 13 last year, four days after Biren Singh resigned as Chief Minister of the state, and it is scheduled to end on February 12 this year.

The 60-member Manipur Assembly, which has a tenure until 2027, had been kept under suspended animation.

Following the imposition of President’s Rule, senior BJP central leaders, including party national General Secretary, Organisation, B.L. Santhosh and the party’s Northeast in-charge Sambit Patra, held a series of meetings with Manipur MLAs in both New Delhi and Imphal.

The BJP has 37 MLAs in the state Assembly, while its NDA allies — the National People’s Party (NPP) and the Naga People’s Front (NPF) — have six and five MLAs respectively. Three Independent MLAs are also supporting the BJP-led NDA.

–IANS

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