Fourth from Manipur to be inducted in Union Council of Ministers RK Ranjan takes oath as Union MoS

IMPHAL, Jul 7 (PTI)
Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, who was sworn in as Union Minister of State in charge of External Affairs and Education on Wednesday, is a member of an erstwhile royal clan in Manipur and has worked for unity among various tribes in his State.
The new Minister is the fourth from Manipur to be inducted in the Union Council of Ministers.
The first was RK Jaichandra Singh who was the first Union Minister from Manipur during the time of Rajiv Gandhi between 1985 and 1988 as the Union Minister for Sports and Youth affairs, and later on as the Chemicals and Petrochemicals Minister.
The second was Prof Meijinlung Kamson who was elected as a Congress MP from Outer Manipur Parliamentary Constituency and served as a Union Minister of State for Home Affairs from 1995–96.
Former State unit president of the BJP Th Chaoba was the third from Manipur to be inducted in the Union Council of Ministers. He was appointed as MoS for Culture and Youth Affairs and Sports from October 13, 1999 to February 2, 2000 and MoS for Food Processing Industries, Ministry of Agriculture from May 27, 2000 to September 1, 2001.
Apart from RK Ranjan, former Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sono-wal, Kiren Rijiju of Aruna- chal Pradesh and Pratima Bhowmik of Tripura were among those inducted in the Council of Ministers.
For Rijiju it was an upgrade as a Cabinet Minister. He was the MoS of YAS.
RK Ranjan, as he is popularly known, was born on September 1, 1952 in the village of Kongba Makha Nandeibam Leikai in Manipur’s Imphal East district. The former academic and now politician is seen as a unifier.
Son of the late Rajkumar Manisana Singh, he is married to Debala Devi. After graduating from DM  College Imphal, he did his Master’s in Geography in 1972 from Guwahati University and later a PhD on ‘problems of land-use’ in Manipur. RK Ranjan hails from the Manipur royal clan which is still highly regarded in the State.
After teaching in colleges in Manipur, he joined Manipur University (MU) as an Assistant Professor in the department of Earth Sciences. He was appointed Registrar at MU and served from 2004 to 2008. In 2013, he joined the BJP and contested the Lok Sabha elections in the next very year. However, his debut was marked by defeat.
In 17th Lok Sabha elections held in 2019, he was elected as Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Inner Manipur Parliamentary Constituency on the BJP ticket. He has been appointed member of several Parliamentary Committees, including the Standing Committee for Science and Technology, the Consultative Committee for DoNER and the Parliamentary Rules Committee.