GUWAHATI: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu will not move to his official bungalow, at least for now. Three chief ministers, who had once occupied the house, died and the fourth, Nabam Tuki, lost power.
“The chief minister is not occupying it for the time being. A decision on whether he will move to the bungalow or not will be taken soon,” the CM’s Office told The Sunday Standard.
The bungalow is being viewed as cursed by many. What added to the superstition was former chief minister Kalikho Pul’s committing suicide at the bungalow recently.
The sprawling building, located at Niti Vihar in Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh, had former chief minister Dorjee Khandu as its first occupant. He was killed in a chopper crash in 2011, within months after he had moved into it following its construction.
After Khandu’s death, Jarbom Gamlin had taken over as the hill state’s chief minister in May 2011. He could serve in the post for barely a few months until stepping down in October that year in the wake of months’ long violence in parts of the state unleashed allegedly by the supporters of Nabam Tuki protesting his appointment.
Gamlin died of illness in November, 2014.
Subsequently, Tuki took over as the CM, but he too faced dissidence leading to his ouster in February last as most MLAs of his party, Congress, defected to the People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA). He returned to the hot seat last month after the Supreme Court reinstated the Congress government but he had to make way for Pema Khandu.