Kohima: Following Nagaland Governor La Ganesan’s death, Manipur Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla has been given additional charge as the Nagaland governor, according to a communique issued by the President’s office on Saturday.
Nagaland governor La Ganesan had breathed his last in Chennai on Friday. He had been in the ICU undergoing treatment after he collapsed on Aug 8 in his residence in the city and sustained a head injury, sources said.
Bhalla has been the governor of Manipur for nearly eight months. The state is currently under the President’s rule, with the assembly kept in suspended animation. A six-month extension of the President’s rule in Manipur was recently approved by Parliament.
Bhalla, who was formerly Union Home Secretary, was appointed Manipur governor in December 2024. He had been the Union Home Secretary when the ongoing conflict in the state had begun on May 3, 2023, and with the imposition of President’s Rule — which has now been extended for another six months — is effectively in charge of administering the state.
While there has been a significant decrease in active violence between Manipur’s Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities — the last major cycle of violence between the two communities was in November last year — there is yet to be a breakthrough in dialogue between representatives of the two communities, and they are currently not in talks with each other.
Under his charge, the government in Manipur has aimed to address several key challenges in the state. This includes a call for people on both sides to surrender arms and ammunition looted from the state’s armouries and an attempt to open up the state’s highways for free movement of both communities through areas where the other community is in the majority.
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The government is also currently trying to facilitate the resettlement of people displaced by the conflict.
