Seven months after President’s Rule was lifted in Manipur, the state’s experiment with an ethnically balanced government is facing a serious internal rupture.
On February 4, 2026, BJP leader Yumnam Khemchand Singh was sworn in as chief minister, with Nemcha Kipgen, a Kuki-Zo BJP MLA, and Losii Dikho, a Naga MLA from the Naga People’s Front (NPF), appointed as deputy chief ministers.
The arrangement was widely seen as an attempt to give the state’s major communities representation in a government formed after almost a year of President’s Rule.
But the two deputy chief ministers are now openly at odds. Dikho has accused Kipgen and her husband, Thangboi Kipgen, of being linked to violence against Nagas.
Kipgen has rejected the allegations, saying they are unverified and risk damaging already fragile relations between communities.
The dispute has now moved beyond public statements. Dikho recently stayed away from a Cabinet meeting because Kipgen was attending it, while Naga legislators have boycotted Assembly proceedings and threatened to withdraw support from the government.
So what happened to the government that was supposed to bring different communities into the same political tent?
A government built around ethnic representation
The first thing to understand is how unusual the present political arrangement is.
President’s Rule was imposed in Manipur in February 2025 after N Biren Singh resigned as chief minister, following nearly two years of ethnic violence that began in May 2023. The Assembly remained under suspended animation. President’s Rule was revoked in February 2026 and Khemchand Singh took over as chief minister.
The choice of two deputy chief ministers was significant. At least on paper, Nemcha Kipgen represented the Kuki-Zo community, while Losii Dikho represented the Nagas. The Indian Express described the arrangement at the time as an attempt at balance and outreach in a deeply fractured state.
On paper, therefore, the arrangement offered a political structure in which a Meitei chief minister, a Kuki-Zo deputy chief minister and a Naga deputy chief minister would jointly participate in running the state.
But representation inside the government did not erase the divisions outside it.
The portfolios also reflect their respective political positions: Kipgen holds Rural Development and Panchayati Raj and Tribal Affairs and Hills, while Dikho holds Public Health Engineering and Forest, Environment and Climate Change.
The fundamental problem is that the two deputy chief ministers do not merely represent themselves. Dikho is operating alongside the Naga Legislators’ Forum, while Kipgen is a prominent Kuki-Zo political representative. As violence between Naga and Kuki groups has intensified, the political space available for the two leaders to act simply as members of the same Cabinet has narrowed.
The violence that brought them into conflict
The immediate trigger is the recent escalation of Naga-Kuki violence in the hills.
In May, 18 people from Konsakhul were abducted from Leilon Vaiphei village in Kangpokpi district. Twelve were subsequently released, while six Naga men were later found dead, their bodies mutilated, according to reports. Naga legislators have accused the Kuki National Front-President (KNF-P) and its leader, Thangboi Kipgen, of involvement and have demanded legal action.
Those allegations are central to the dispute because Thangboi Kipgen is the husband of Nemcha Kipgen.
Dikho and eight other Naga legislators wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah in August seeking action against Kuki militant leaders and against Nemcha Kipgen, alleging that her office was colluding with the KNF-P. They also demanded the abrogation of the Suspension of Operations agreement with Kuki armed groups.
Kipgen has denied involvement in the violence. She said the allegations against her and her husband were unverified and disputed claims that she had failed to act during the abduction of Naga civilians. She also said she had worked to secure the release of people detained during the crisis.
The dispute has therefore become a question of accountability: can a minister belonging to one side of a conflict remain part of a government when legislators from the other side accuse her family of being connected to an armed group involved in that conflict?
That is the political question at the heart of the confrontation.
When the Cabinet itself becomes part of the conflict
The confrontation escalated sharply in September.
Dikho said he would not attend a Cabinet meeting because Nemcha Kipgen was participating. His office said the decision followed the collective position of the Naga Legislators’ Forum and referred to what he described as the continued targeting of Naga civilians by Kuki militants.
Nine Naga legislators also stayed away from an Assembly sitting, demanding action over the deaths of the six Naga men. Dikho subsequently warned that Naga MLAs could consider withdrawing support from the government if violence against Nagas continued.
Then came another turn in the cycle of violence.
On September 15, two Kuki-Zo women were killed at Leisangphai in Tamenglong district. Local accounts and Kuki-Zo organisations alleged that Naga attackers were responsible, although the identities of the attackers remained under investigation in contemporary reports. The killings followed four Kuki-Zo civilian deaths in separate incidents two days earlier.
On September 16, Dikho issued a statement condemning both sides of the violence. He condemned the killing of the two Kuki women, which he described as allegedly carried out by Naga perpetrators.
At the same time, he accused armed Kuki militants of the KNF(P), which he said was led by Nemcha Kipgen’s husband, of attacking and burning homes in Chawangkining village in Kangpokpi. He also criticised Nemcha Kipgen for what he described as failing to intervene.
That statement captures the paradox confronting Manipur’s government.
The two deputy chief ministers were brought into government partly to embody political inclusion. But the continuing violence has increasingly compelled each to respond to the security concerns and political demands of the community they represent.
The result is a government in which the conflict outside the Cabinet is increasingly being reproduced inside it.
The question, therefore, is not simply why Losii Dikho and Nemcha Kipgen are fighting. It is whether a government created to bridge Manipur’s ethnic divide can function when its own ministers are being pulled in opposite directions by that divide.
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