Held for fresh Manipur violence, former Deputy Speaker a veteran party hopper

Since 1995, he has contested in every Assembly election from Henglep on tickets of different parties — Manipur People’s Party, Manipur State Congress Party, Indian National Congress, Lok Janshakti Party, Trinamool Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena.

In 2017, when Manipur got its first BJP government, he finally won back the seat on a BJP ticket. That year, he was also elected as chairman of the Hills Area Committee — a constitutional body comprising all MLAs from the state’s hill areas — which is empowered to monitor legislation and administration of the hill areas.

However, he did not complete his term and was one of the MLAs who precipitated the first major political crisis for N Biren Singh as the BJP CM in 2020. He was among the three BJP MLAs who had resigned both from the Assembly and the BJP, to defect to the Congress.

He changed parties again ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections, to join the Shiv Sena. However, he was unsuccessful in the election, coming fourth out of six candidates.

On Monday, there had been fresh tensions in the New Checkon Bazaar area of Imphal, a mixed population locality. A mob had set fire to abandoned homes belonging to members of the Kuki community, when an altercation in the market escalated after some miscreants allegedly tried to force vendors to shut their shops. After security forces arrested two armed men, and ex-MLA Haokip, Manipur security advisor Kuldiep Singh told reporters that the three had been held for allegedly “intimidating shopkeepers” in the area.