ITANAGAR: It was a massive victory for Congress and egg on the face of BJP in Arunachal Pradesh.
In dramatic turn of events, all 30 MLAs of People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA) including former Chief Minister Kalikho Pul, who were with the Congress ahead of the rebellion against Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, returned to Congress fold just hours before the chief minister was to have taken the floor test on Saturday as scheduled.
Later, all the 45 Congress MLAs in the House of 58 elected Pema Khandu, son of former chief minister the late Dorjee Khandu, as the leader of CLP and chief ministerial candidate. Two independent MLAs, who were with Pul, also backed Khandu’s election. What followed next was Tuki’s resignation both as the chief minister and the leader of CLP.
The BJP was instrumental in causing the split in Congress and was eyeing the formation of its government in the frontier state. Last month, it made its intention known by formally writing to PPA for merger. But given what followed, the party was, surely, dealt with a heavy blow.
Tuki’s defeat, in the event of the floor test, was a foregone conclusion as he had the support of only 15 MLAs.
Altogether 43 MLAs – including 30 from PPA, 11 from BJP and two independents – were with Pul. What made the PPA MLAs to return to Congress was not spelt out by any but the fact that under the anti-defection law, they could face disqualification by the Speaker if they voted against Tuki during the floor test, possibly, made them to end the unrest by going Congress’ way.
The resignation of Tuki as the chief minister was accepted by the governor, the Raj Bhavan said in a statement.
Earlier, Khandu, accompanied by Tuki, met Governor (acting) Tathagata Roy in the Raj Bhavan and staked claim to form the government. His swearing-in is likely on Sunday. Emerging from the Raj Bhavan, Khandu told reporters that he had met the governor and staked claim to form the government.
“Mr Tuki resigned as both the chief minister and the CLP leader. The Congress legislators elected me as the leader of CLP. All those, who went to PPA, are back in Congress. We took clearance from our leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi before the election of the new CLP leader,” Khandu said.
He dubbed the developments a big victory for the Congress.
Tuki downplayed the turmoil in Congress as “differences of opinions and not dissidence”.
“It’s a big victory for Congress. The Congress is united. The crisis was created by BJP and it’s an open secret. All machinations and tricks by BJP failed. Surely, it’s a lesson for them,” Tuki said.
Assembly Speaker Nabam Rebia too blamed BJP for the months’ long political unrest in the state.
“It was the BJP which had engineered the dissidence in the Congress. The governor (Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa) was acting at the behest of Central government and BJP. If we have to have governors like him in the states, the Indian Constitution has to be rewritten,” Rebia told Express at his office in the Assembly secretariat.
The political crisis in the state would not have arisen if the Congress leadership had given in to the demand of party’s rebel MLAs for Tuki’s ouster. The high command, Congress sources told Express, did not want to remove Tuki as that would have set a bad precedent and sent a wrong message across party’s state units. That was exactly the reason why the Congress leadership did not remove former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi even after 55 of the 78 party MLAs demanded his ouster two years back.