Benjamin Yepthomi

Bharatiya Janata Party · Nagaland

BenjaminYepthomi

State President of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Nagaland — appointed in September 2023, and returned unopposed for a second term in January 2025.

  • OfficeState President, BJP Nagaland
  • Took charge28 September 2023
  • Second termJanuary 2025
  • Home districtDimapur, Nagaland
Portrait of Benjamin Yepthomi, State President of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Nagaland, in a white shirt with a traditional Naga bead necklace.
Plate 01Benjamin Yepthomi, following his appointment as State President of BJP Nagaland.
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Introduction

A party worker who rose through the organisation

Benjamin Yepthomi leads the Bharatiya Janata Party’s state unit in Nagaland — a small, strategically placed state in India’s north-east where the BJP governs in coalition rather than alone, and where a state president’s work is measured less in headlines than in how far the organisation reaches into the districts.

He was appointed to the post on 25 September 2023 by the party’s national president, Jagat Prakash Nadda, through an organisational appointment letter issued by national general secretary and headquarters in-charge Arun Singh. He took charge three days later at the party’s state headquarters in Kohima, succeeding Temjen Imna Along, the Minister for Tourism and Higher Education, who had held the office for two terms. He is the eleventh person to hold the presidency of the BJP’s Nagaland unit.

Yepthomi did not arrive at the office from outside the party. He is from Dimapur district, the son of the late Khehokhu Yepthomi, who founded Thahekhu Village and Khehokhu Village. He had served two consecutive terms as state president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha — the party’s youth wing — in Nagaland, and then as state vice president of the BJP. He worked on the party’s election management in the 2018 and 2023 Nagaland Assembly elections, campaigned for the party in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Karnataka and Maharashtra, and was in charge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally at Dimapur during the 2023 assembly campaign.

The through-line of his tenure has been organisational rather than electoral. In his first year he toured every district in Nagaland, covering thirty assembly constituencies and all twenty constituencies of Eastern Nagaland — the region whose long-standing demand for a Frontier Nagaland Territory has become the defining political question of the state. In January 2025, at the close of the party’s Sangathan Parv organisational cycle, he was returned unopposed for a second term.

Read the full profile Follow the chronology

On taking charge

Statements made on assuming office

“BJP Nagaland is a party that understands the aspirations of the Naga people.”

Kohima, 28 September 2023

Speaking at the state headquarters on the day he assumed office, Yepthomi told party workers that “a party is known by its people,” urging members to uphold the party’s ideology. He set out an intention to make the BJP in Nagaland “a party of unity and a party united on all fronts,” and took a pledge not to divide the party but to strengthen it on every platform — specifically at the grassroots and booth levels.

He committed to working to the Prime Minister’s formulation of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, Sabka Prayaas.

  • 11thPresident of the BJP’s Nagaland state unit
  • 30Assembly constituencies covered in his first year in office
  • 20Eastern Nagaland constituencies toured during the 2024 membership drive
  • 2.15 lakhActive and primary party members in Nagaland, as stated by him in 2024
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The office he holds

A state presidency in a coalition state

The BJP is a partner in Nagaland’s governing coalition rather than its sole occupant. That makes the state president’s brief a particular one: hold the party’s own identity and cadre together, represent its positions in a shared government, and carry the concerns of Nagaland — and of the north-east more broadly — to the party’s national leadership in New Delhi.

In July 2024, at an extended state executive meeting at IMC Hall in Dimapur, the unit under his presidency adopted resolutions backing the Modi-led NDA after its third consecutive Lok Sabha victory, supporting the Act East Policy and the North East Economic Corridor, and extending support to the state’s PDA government led by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and Deputy Chief Minister Y. Patton. The same meeting resolved that only active party workers should be recommended for positions such as PDA members and public sector undertaking chairpersons, and committed the unit to forming booth-level committees at every polling booth in the state.

See the work in detail
Benjamin Yepthomi greeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi with folded hands at a public event.
Plate 02Benjamin Yepthomi greets Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a party event.
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Lines of work

Where his tenure has concentrated

  • Organisation Building downward, to the booth. A district-by-district presidential tour in his first year, followed by a resolution to constitute booth-level committees at every polling booth in Nagaland. He has been described in regional reporting as the first state BJP president to have toured the grassroots this extensively within a first year.
  • Membership Sadasyata Abhiyan, 2024. A statewide enrolment drive run across roughly 140 locations, with more than nine in Dimapur alone. Yepthomi led a State Presidential Mandal Tour from Tizit in the north-east of the state to Seyochung–Sitimi between 4 and 24 September 2024, and reported around 2.15 lakh active and primary members, enrolled for the 2024–2030 cycle.
  • Eastern Nagaland The Frontier Nagaland Territory demand. At a Dimapur press conference in August 2024 he called the concerns of the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation “deep rooted, genuine and legitimate,” and said the long-standing issue deserves a quick resolution.
  • Naga political issue An early, inclusive and honourable solution. Under his presidency the unit has resolved to support such a settlement, and has appealed to the Government of India and the negotiating parties to expedite the finalisation of the process.
  • Cadre training Political education in the districts. In May 2026 he addressed the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Prashikshan Mahabhiyan at Longchang village, Aboi — a two-day district-level training for Mon, Longleng and Aboi covering party ideology, organisational expansion, booth management and welfare-scheme delivery.
  • North-east development “India cannot truly develop unless the Northeast develops.” Responding to the Union Budget 2026–27, he pointed to the increase in the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region allocation from ₹5,915 crore to ₹6,812.30 crore as evidence of central commitment to the region.
Benjamin Yepthomi seated at the centre of a press conference table with regional television microphones in front of him and party colleagues on either side.
Plate 03Addressing a press conference alongside party colleagues.
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Public position

Speaking for the unit, on the record

Much of a state president’s work in Nagaland is done at the press table: setting the unit’s position on the Naga political issue, on the Eastern Nagaland question, on the central budget and on the state’s coalition arrangements, in a media environment where the party’s state voice and its national voice are read together.

On returning for a second term in January 2025, Yepthomi set out the terms in which he wanted the unit judged.

“The BJP stands for honesty, transparency, and service. Together, we will strengthen our bond with the people, deliver on our promises, and secure a prosperous future for Nagaland.”

On re-election as State President, January 2025
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