A ministerial office is not a ceremonial chair to be occupied in name while someone else performs the actual work. It is a constitutional responsibility entrusted to an individual who is expected to discharge duties personally and accountably. If a minister is unable to function from the office, unable to attend to official responsibilities, and unable to exercise authority directly, then the only honorable and constitutional option is to step aside and allow the Chief Minister or another duly authorized minister to take charge.
What is happening in Manipur today raises serious questions about the credibility of governance itself.
If Minister Nemcha Kipgen is unable to function from her official chamber at the Manipur Secretariat, why is Chief Minister Khemchand Singh not directly assuming those responsibilities? Why is the government allowing a situation where official duties are allegedly carried out through substitutes and intermediaries? Since when has ministerial responsibility become transferable by personal preference?
This is not merely an administrative anomaly; it is a dangerous political precedent. It creates the impression that some ministers enjoy privileges beyond constitutional norms. It fuels public suspicion that political compulsions, rather than governance, are dictating government decisions. The entire arrangement smells of political expediency.
The BJP high command appears to have designed the present government around ethnic arithmetic, believing that distributing ministerial berths among different communities would somehow reduce tensions in Manipur. The appointment of two Deputy Chief Ministers from different communities was perhaps the most visible symbol of that strategy. Cabinet positions were seemingly distributed to satisfy competing ethnic and political interests.
But the experiment has exposed its own contradictions.
A government cannot restore peace merely by allocating chairs according to ethnic identities. Peace is not a mathematical formula. It is not achieved by balancing communities around a Cabinet table while the state continues to burn with distrust and uncertainty. If ethnic representation alone could guarantee peace, Manipur would not have suffered years of conflict while many of the same political actors remained in power.
The bitter truth is that symbolic representation has failed.
What Manipur requires is not ethnic balancing but capable governance. The state needs ministers who can work, decide, administer, and lead. It needs a government that commands public confidence, not one constantly forced to explain why ministers cannot personally discharge the duties assigned to them.
The lesson should have been learned already. Former Chief Minister N. Biren Singh faced criticism and allegations from various quarters. The controversy surrounding the alleged audio tape became a national issue and eventually found its way into legal proceedings. Whether one agrees with those allegations or not, the political reality is undeniable: public trust was damaged.
His departure was presented as a step toward creating conditions for peace. If peace and reconciliation are indeed the objectives, then the new government cannot be built on the same flawed foundations. Ministers must be chosen for competence, credibility, and neutrality—not merely because they represent a particular ethnic constituency.
Manipur does not need representatives of communities sitting in ministerial chairs merely to satisfy political equations. It needs administrators capable of governing one united state.
The BJP high command may decide who forms the government, but it cannot govern Manipur from afar. The responsibility lies with the state leadership to honestly communicate the realities of the crisis and build a cabinet capable of addressing them. Political tokenism and symbolic appointments cannot substitute for leadership.
Chief Minister Khemchand Singh now faces a defining test. His duty is not to preserve ethnic quotas within the Cabinet. His duty is to assemble a team of ministers who can independently and effectively perform their responsibilities. Governance cannot be outsourced. Ministerial authority cannot be delegated like private property. Accountability cannot be exercised through nominees.
The people of Manipur did not elect a government of stand-ins, substitutes, and political appointees operating by remote control. They expect ministers to govern, not to nominate others to govern in their place.
And this leads to the most fundamental question of all: if the high command appoints a minister, and that minister in turn appoints someone else to perform the work, then what exactly is the role of the Chief Minister? What remains of Cabinet responsibility? What remains of democratic accountability?
These are not questions the government can avoid forever.
The people of Manipur deserve answers. More importantly, they deserve a government that functions through authority, responsibility, and accountability—not through political accommodation, constitutional improvisation, and proxy administration.
Leader writer: Sh Ajit