Dramatic Congress move stuns BJP in Arunachal Pradesh

In a quick and dramatic turn of events on Saturday, the political drama in Arunachal Pradesh unfolded and concluded in what will be remembered as an exciting thriller by the Congress and a tragicomedy by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Just hours before Kalikho Pul, the rebel Congress leader who became chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh with the BJP’s outside support in January, was poised to win the floor test in the House, the beleaguered Congress Party succeeded in wresting the rebels and bringing them back to the party fold in one deft move — the party forced chief minister Nabam Tuki to step down and appointed Pema Khandu as the new leader of the Congress Legislature Party in his place, a jolt from the blue for the BJP’s Arunachal strategist Kiren Rijiju.

All Congress rebel MLAs, including Mr Pul, attended the Congress Legislature Party meeting on Saturday morning where Mr Khandu was elected unanimously.

After the CLP meeting, Mr Tuki, who was reinstated by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, immediately rushed to Raj Bhavan and submitted his resignation. Following which Mr Khandu, son of late chief minister Dorjee Khandu, staked his claim, with letters of support from 44 Congress MLAs, to form the government. PCC president Padi Richo, Mr Tuki, Mr Khandu and Jai Kumar accompanied him to Raj Bhavan.

After meeting the governor, Mr Khandu said that while the governor has accepted Mr Tuki’s resignation, he has not yet given any commitment about the floor test or the swearing-in. Governor Tathagata Roy said that he has to go through the letters to process their claim before any formal announcement can be made.

The Arunachal Assembly has an effective strength of 58 MLAs, of which the BJP has 11 and there are two Independents. With Speaker Nabam Rebia and the return of dissidents, the Congress strength has gone up to 45.

If insiders are to be believed, Union minister of state for home, Kiren Rijiju, who was dealing with Congress rebels and contemplating the merger of Congress rebels with the BJP in Arunachal Pradesh, was caught completely off guard by the Congress’ maneuvers which were apparently being planned by Congress strategists soon after the Supreme Court’s verdict earlier this week.

The BJP was confident of Mr Pul winning the floor test. On Thursday, in fact, Mr Pul paraded 30 MLAs before the media and said that he was confident of defeating Mr Tuki as the Congress had been reduced to a party of 15 MLAs.

But there were signs of the Congress’ plan early on. Kapil Sibal, who was the Congress’ counsel in the case before Supreme Court, had dropped the issue of disqualification of the 21 rebel MLAs who had defected from the party in his writ petition. The issue was ignored to keep negotiations with the rebels going.

Having paid a heavy price for ignoring dissenting voices in Assam already, sources said that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was in touch with Mr Khandu and Chowna Mein, deputy chief minister in the Pul government, for the last six months.

Party insiders say that Congress MP Ninong Ering, who was also in touch with the Congress rebels, played a key role in pulling all Congress MLAs back to the party fold on Saturday.

Trouble for the Tuki government began in December 2015 when Mr Khandu resigned from the Nabam Tuki government, accusing the chief minister of having “miserably failed” in governance. He is now likely to be sworn-in as Arunachal Pradesh’s nineth chief minister.