GUWAHATI: As speculated for months, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu’s camp submitted a list of MLAs of his People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA) to the Assembly Speaker on Saturday morning seeking their merger with BJP.
Speculations were rife for long that they would eventually end up merging with BJP.
So the development has not come as a surprise to the people of this politically-unstable State. The suspension of 19 PPA MLAs – 12 of them suspended on Saturday morning – only expedited the decision of Khandu and his aides.
PPA chairman Kamen Ringu confirmed that a list of the MLAs of Khandu led PPA was submitted to the Speaker.
“Pema Khandu-led PPA has submitted a list of PPA MLAs to the Assembly Speaker for merger with BJP. They also had a talk with Assembly authorities,” Ringu told Express.
Asked what the PPA will now do, he said, “We will do what we should do. Right now, we will not say anything. We will see. We gave them warnings and also suspended a few of them but they kept violating party diktats. We will meet whom we should meet”.
On Friday, he had accused Khandu and the other suspended MLAs of working against the interests of PPA.
Earlier on Saturday, the PPA suspended 12 MLAs for allegedly siding with Khandu.
Khandu, who was not available for comments, will brief the media after a while.
Despite being suspended and the PPA virtually choosing Takam Tagar (Pario) as his replacement, Khandu has stuck to his guns by refusing to step down. His camp claimed he had absolute majority after 49 MLAs – 35 of them from PPA, 12 from BJP and the two Independents – lent their support to him and his leadership.