Nongthombam Biren Singh was sworn in as the chief minister of Manipur at 1 pm on Wednesday (March 15). Governor Najma Heptulla administered the oath of office to the newly elected CM and the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) legislature party in Manipur.
Singh, 56, had earlier met Governor Najma Heptulla to stake claim to form the government in Manipur soon after he was named the chief ministerial candidate of the BJP in the state. "I thank Amit Shah ji, Modi ji and senior leaders; left Congress due to misgovernance, sure that BJP will give good governance to Manipur," Singh was quoted by ANI as saying.
BJP president Amit Shah was supposed to attend Singh's oath-taking ceremony in Imphal but he had to return to Delhi following a technical glitch in the flight.
#FLASH BJP's N.Biren Singh sworn in as Chief Minister of Manipur pic.twitter.com/5FDk1d3y4R
— ANI (@ANI_news) March 15, 2017
Here is all you need to know about the new CM of Manipur:
Singh was a national-level football player and also worked as a journalist before entering politics in 2002 by joining the regional Democratic Revolutionary Peoples Party. He was elected to the eighth Manipur Legislative Assembly from Heingang, his home constituency. The party then merged with the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2004.
Singh was appointed the minister of state for vigilance in 2003 and later as the minister of irrigation & flood control and youth affairs & sports in Manipur. He won a seat in the Assembly in the 2007 and the 2012 polls. But he was excluded from the Cabinet in 2012 due to which his relationship with the former Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh deteriorated. Following the feud, the national level football player-turned-journalist-turned-politician was made the vice-president of the Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee.
However, Singh left the Congress only to join BJP in October 2016. The saffron party had won the Assam Assembly polls in May 2016. A few months before he resigned from the Congress, Singh had threatened to quit the party and join BJP along with 20 other Congress MLAs if CM Okram Ibobi Singh refused to reshuffle the cabinet and include him as a minister.
Singh was made the co-convener of BJP's election management committee after he joined the party in October 2016. He won from his home constituency of Heingang yet again in the recently concluded Assembly polls.
