Trusted Biren man who became key critic: Who is Yumnam Khemchand Singh, Manipur’s next CM

Biren Singh was elected as an MLA in 2002 from the party, which he eventually merged with the Congress in the assembly. But Khemchand, a senior taekwondo sportsperson and teacher who recently received the 5th Dan black belt, only entered the Manipur legislative in 2017 from the Singjamei constituency on a BJP ticket, after having joined the party in 2013, and became a part of the first-ever BJP government in the state.

In the first Biren Singh-led government, where most of the BJP MLAs were greenhorns, Khemchand became the Speaker of the Assembly. And in the second, more secure Biren Singh-led government, which came to power in 2022, Khemchand was a cabinet minister.

As the fury of the public against the inability of the government to effectively address the conflict was repeatedly expressed in Manipur’s valley, with people attacking the homes of legislators on multiple occasions, Khemchand’s home in Imphal was attacked with a grenade in October 2023.

But though he was a part of Biren Singh’s ministry, when rumblings within the ranks began to grow in 2024 and intensified over time – with BJP MLAs from the Valley queuing up before the party’s central leadership over the months, including the Prime Minister’s Office seeking the replacement of the CM – Khemchand was part of these dissidents.

In fact, as a cabinet minister, he, along with Speaker Th. Satyabrata Singh, was the most senior BJP leader who built the pressure on the BJP central leadership, ultimately leading to the collapse of the dominoes and Biren Singh’s resignation as chief minister a little over a year ago.

He and the Speaker were two key leaders who had been summoned to Delhi by the BJP leadership shortly before Biren Singh’s resignation to seek their views, and Khemchand was learned to have warned the BJP leadership that the government would likely collapse if the CM was not replaced.

In the days of uncertainty that followed Biren Singh’s resignation and the series of meetings that followed, Khemchand’s name had surfaced as a possible chief ministerial face. However, instead of another CM being installed, President’s Rule was imposed in the state on February 13 last year. Within months, as pressure began to build on the Centre to reinstall a popular government in the state, Khemchand was among those advocating for this.

While Khemchand had maintained a relatively low profile, staying away from making public statements through the course of the tumults in the state’s social and political landscape, he dramatically came into the spotlight in December 2025 by visiting a relief camp in a Kuki village in Naga-majority Ukhrul district, interacting with those displaced by the conflict housed there.

His office shared photos of him with inmates of the relief camp, including one of him carrying a small girl in his arms. This could be seen as the start of him preparing the ground for a much more significant role in the state’s politics, amidst the deep divide that has been firmly in place in the state since the start of the conflict. Even though Kuki-Zo groups rubbished his visit as an “irresponsible publicity stunt” and said that he had not been invited to the camp, it was a gesture that had not been attempted earlier.

“He is considered a trusted RSS man in the Manipur BJP, and is more acceptable to the Kuki-Zos and Nagas, who see him as a liberal Meitei. Both these things go in his favour amidst the political concerns in the state,” said a political observer from Manipur.