New Delhi: At a time when Manipur goes via troublesome instances, Yumnam Khemchand Singh, the 62-year-old Meitei Bharatiya Janata Celebration MLA who is about to turn into the chief minister of Manipur, will not be one to mince phrases.
At a gathering in mid-2024, when Manipur was on fireplace, amid rising public anger over the federal government’s incapability to revive peace, Khemchand publicly instructed N. Biren Singh to resign as CM.
A BJP chief who attended the assembly instructed ThePrint that Khemchand had mentioned that every one celebration MLAs had been able to resign together with Biren. “The CM heard him, however he did not say a lot.”
Within the months that adopted, Khemchand, who was thought-about near the RSS, grew to become a vocal critic of the previous CM.
He didn’t bow down when it was over. Twenty males brandishing weapons arrived. June 2024, using a jeep exterior Imphal residence. Manipur’s ethnic battle remained smoldering. The lads received out of the automobile and began shifting in direction of the gate of Khemchand’s home.
A surveillance digicam put in on the gate captured the commotion. Safety personnel got here to the gate and the police had been alerted, forcing the militants to retreat, two state BJP leaders and a safety official, who requested anonymity, instructed ThePrint.
Mr. Khemchand was additionally among the many Bharatiya Janata Celebration MLAs who had been referred to as to Delhi a number of instances by the central management to take inventory of the scenario on the bottom, telling them that anger in opposition to Biren Singh was rising and will harm the celebration within the elections.
He wasn’t flawed. Within the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP misplaced each seats within the state.
Khemchand was additionally among the many MLAs who visited Delhi a couple of days earlier than Biren Singh’s resignation as CM on February 9, 2025, and conveyed to the central management concerning the imminent menace that some Bharatiya Janata Celebration MLAs may assist a no-confidence movement within the Congress within the state meeting and topple the federal government. This was an necessary enter that prompted the celebration’s central management to demand Singh’s resignation.
Mockingly, it was Biren Singh who advised Khemchand’s title because the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Celebration’s Legislative Celebration on Tuesday.
Not essentially anti-Viren
Nevertheless, Khemchand was not at all times anti-Viren. A two-time MLA from Sinjamei constituency in Imphal metropolis, he grew to become Congress president throughout the first time period of the Biren Singh authorities from 2017 to 2022.
“At the moment, he was a Biren supporter. He grew to become the primary MLA to turn into speaker,” mentioned a second BJP MLA, who didn’t want to be named.
Khemchand remained the favourite when the Bharatiya Janata Celebration was re-elected in 2022. He was given a cupboard publish answerable for necessary portfolios reminiscent of municipal affairs and housing growth. Rural Growth and Panchayati Raj. And training.
In December 2025, on the age of 62, Kemchand posted a photograph on X after receiving his fifth diploma black belt from the World Conventional Taekwondo Federation in Seoul.
It was an honor to host the thirty ninth Nationwide Sub-Junior Gyeolgi Championship and the 14th Nationwide Sub-Junior Poomsae Taekwondo Championship at Talkatora Indoor Stadium in New Delhi. I’d additionally prefer to thank the Delhi Taekwondo Affiliation for the popularity given to me. @BTC4India pic.twitter.com/Jko6sNvQ8N
— Khemchand Yumnam (@YKhemchandSingh) January 13, 2026
Class 10 Go entered politics in early 2000 however contested his first election in 2017.
Meitei MLA’s first go to to Kuki first assist station
Within the aftermath of the battle, Manipur was divided alongside ethnic strains, with the Meiteis confined to the valleys and the Kukizos confined to the hills.
The rift was so deep that individuals from the 2 communities didn’t dare to enter one another’s territory. It was throughout this era of instability that Khemchand first took workplace. Meitei MLA Final December, greater than two and a half years after the ethnic violence, I visited a reduction camp housing internally displaced folks from the Kukizo group within the Ukhrul hills. starting An eruption occurred throughout the state.
Nevertheless, his go to drew a lot criticism from civil society organizations in Kukizo. They termed his go to “unauthorized” and “politically motivated” and mentioned the MLA mentioned the general public visited reduction camps. There have been no folks dwelling there.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Additionally learn: Armed males got here to the financial institution of the river. Then smoke and screams erupted, leaving a village in Manipur in ruins.
