N Biren Singh takes oath as Manipur CM for second straight term; Nadda, other BJP leaders present
Singh took the oath in the presence of BJP's national president JP Nadda, BJP’s Manipur unit president Adhikarimayum Sharda Devi, Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and other party leaders.
N Biren Singh on Monday took oath as Manipur's chief minister for a second straight term, 11 days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came back to power with a landslide victory in the recently concluded assembly election.
Biren Singh took the oath in the presence of BJP's national president JP Nadda, BJP’s Manipur unit president Adhikarimayum Sharda Devi, Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and other party leaders.
Soon after being sworn-in, Biren Singh said his government's first target would be to turn Manipur into a corruption-free state. “I would work day and night to wash out corruption from the state. The next step will be to wash out any kind of drug-related issues from the state,” he said.
He said he would also try to see that all insurgents operating in the state are brought to the negotiating table and there are dialogues.
Earlier in the day, Biren Singh welcomed Nadda at the Imphal International Airport. “A very warm welcome to Imphal, JP Nadda Ji, Hon’ble National President, BJP. The entire state unit of BJP Manipur is thankful to you for being here in Imphal to take part in the oath-taking ceremony of the new government,” he wrote on Twitter.
Biren Singh was unanimously elected as leader of the legislature party of the BJP during a meeting held on Sunday. It was attended by the party's central observers -- Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union law minister Kiren Rijiju.
Last week, Biren Singh spent some time in Delhi where he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and defence minister Rajnath Singh.
Before entering politics, Biren Singh was a footballer and also had a career in journalism. He made his political debut with the Democratic Revolutionary Peoples' Party. He had successfully contested his first election in 2002 from the Heingang Assembly constituency.
A year later, he joined the Congress and retained the Heingang seat. Singh had served under the cabinet led by Okram Ibobi Singh.
Following a fallout with Okram Ibobi Singh, Singh rebelled against the chief minister and joined the BJP in October.
After the 2017 assembly election, Biren Singh was appointed chief minister of the northeastern state, a first from the saffron party.
In this year's Assembly election, Biren Singh won the Heingang constituency for the fifth consecutive term as he defeated Congress' Pangeijam Saratchandra Singh by a margin of more than 18,000 votes.
The BJP won 32 of the 60 seats in the election. This is the first time that the party won an absolute majority in Manipur. In 2017, the BJP had formed the government with the support of the Naga People's Front (NPF) and the National People's Party (NPP).
(With agency inputs)
