After winning court war, Congress aces at political battle too in Arunachal

By replacing chief minister Nabam Tuki with Pema Khandu, the Congress played the master-stroke that would make the scheduled floor test needless

In a sudden turn of events in the politically charged Northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, the Congress-led Nabam Tuki government resigned today just a couple of hours before it was to face a trust motion in the state assembly. However, the resignation is seen as a well-crafted strategy of the party as Tuki government will in all probability be replaced by another Congress government, which will now be headed by Pema Khandu. 

Tuki government was scheduled to face the floor test today after it was restored by a Supreme Court judgment of July 13. With majority of the Congress MLAs in the anti-Tuki camp, the fall of Tuki-led Congress government was almost imminent if the floor test was held. 

 

The time for trust vote was scheduled at 1 pm today. The situation demanded ingenuity on the part of the Congress, and the country's oldest party rather played the master stroke. Tuki resigned as chief minister in the morning, thus making the need for trust vote irrelevant. The party also chose a consensual leader from the rebel camp in the form of Pema Khandu to head the party in assembly. The choice of Khandu was aimed at bringing back all those who had recently deserted the party and were rallying behind rebel Congress leader Kalikho Pul. And the idea worked as Pul, including all his supporters, accepted 36-year old Khandu as the new leader of Congress Legislature Party (CLP).  

Khandu later met Governor Tathagata Roy (Roy is the acting Governor as the incumbent Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa is ailing) and staked claim to form the next Congress government in Aruanchal Pradesh. He claimed he had the support of 44 other MLAs in the 60-member Arunachal assembly. 

“Arunachal developments are in no way any setback for the BJP or the Central government. Neither we were in power before Tuki took over as chief minister nor we are in a position to form any government at present. It was all about internal politics of the Congress party and BJP should not be linked to the developments in Arunachal,” said Kiren Rijiju, Union minister of state for home affairs and also a Lok Sabha MP from the state. 

The state has been witnessing political turmoil since December last year when open rebellion broke out in Congress party against Tuki. Rebel Congress leader Pul, claiming the support of majority MLAs, challenged the Tuki government. Later in January, the Centre imposed President’s rule in the state which was lifted in February and Pul, with the support of rebel Congress and BJP MLAs, formed the government in Itanagar, to which the Supreme Court showed the doors on Wednesday. Many saw the imposition of President’s rule as a political overreach by the Centre to help the formation of a non-Congress government in the frontier state.

Pul, just back on Wednesday (the day Supreme Court judgment came) had taken the vow to make Northeast ‘Congress-Mukt’. He took the ‘Congress-Mukt’ pledge along other leaders and chief ministers of non-Congress parties of Northeast in Guwahati. Three days later, he is now working on modalities on the new Khandu-led Congress government formation in Arunachal. With him back in the party-fold, Congress would surely have the last laugh. 

Pema Khandu is the son of Arunachal’s former chief minister Dorjee Khandu, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2011. He had served as a minister in Tuki government till he joined the rebel camp in 2015. He represents Mukhto constituency in western Tawang district, which was earlier represented at a stretch by his father Dorjee Khandu since 1990 (till his death), winning many times uncontested.