Manipur: Najma Heptulla to be sworn-in as Governor on Sunday

Heptulla’s appointment as Manipur governor comes after her resignation from the NDA Union cabinet last month on “age” grounds. The government is believed to have set an unwritten ‘75-year age bar’ for ministers and has kept veterans such as L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi out of the cabinet.

Heptullah’s two-year stint as minister for minority affairs was peppered with occasional controversial statements like when she questioned the logic of categorising Muslims as minorities or talked about the people of Hindustan being Hindus. Overall, Heptulla never let her ministerial charge come in the way of her unflinching loyalty to the BJP, with a resolute refusal to criticise controversial, often blatantly anti-Muslim statements of her party colleagues.