The Congress on Friday lost its government in Arunachal Pradesh to a BJP-led front when 43 of its MLAs led by Chief Minister Pema Khandu defected wholesale and merged with the People’s Party of Arunachal, just two months after it had regained power. Khandu, who had replaced Nabam Tuki following a dissident campaign in July, paraded 42 MLAs before Assembly speaker Tenzing Norbu Thongdok, who accepted their joining the PPA, Assembly sources said. The PPA had five MLAs who had joined the Congress in 2014. Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarmah, convenor of the North East Development Alliance (NEDA), claimed that with the PPA entering the NEDA, in which the 11-member BJP has considerable influence, the Khandu government is for all purposes an NDA government.
The merger would be notified in the Assembly bulletin, formalising the political development that leaves Congress with governments only in Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram in the North-East. The dramatic development in Arunachal Pradesh brought back memories of the famous ‘aya ram, gaya ram’ episode involving Bhajan Lal, who was heading a Janata Party government in Haryana and defected lock, stock, and barrel with all the party MLAs to the Congress after Indira Gandhi came back to power in 1980.
