 "Nabam Tuki")
On Saturday, the Congress exhibited rare nimble footedness to replace Nabam Tuki with Pema Khandu as its chief ministerial candidate in Arunachal Pradesh. The change in leadership spurred a rebellion against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-supported Kalikho Pul, with Khandu claiming he has the backing of as many as 47, including two independents, of the 58 legislators in the state assembly.
Former state finance minister Pul’s defection had precipitated a chain of events that culminated in a historic Supreme Court judgment earlier this week reinstating Tuki’s chief ministership. Pul had defected and formed his own party in February, and became chief minister with the BJP’s support. The rebel MLA (member of legislative assembly) had cited inaccessibility to top Congress leaders, including Tuki and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, as the reason for his defection.
Hours ahead of a scheduled floor test in the assembly, which Tuki was directed by Governor Tathagata Roy to take, the Congress Legislature Party met and elected 37-year-old Pema Khandu, son of late chief minister Dorjee Khandu, as its new leader.
Also Read
Tuki proposed the name of Khandu, which was unanimously accepted by 44 MLAs who were present. Speaker Nabam Rebia did not attend the meeting, while ousted chief minister Pul attended the meeting with the rebel MLAs. Ahead of the Congress Legislative Party meeting, Tuki met the Governor and told him he was quitting as the chief minister and of the Congress party's decision to elect a new leader. Khandu, 36, is likely to be sworn in as the chief minister next week. Governor Roy, a former West Bengal BJP leader, has indicated that there will not be a floor test.
Dorjee Khandu had died in a helicopter crash in April 2011.
The Congress conceded that one reason it had lost control of the government was the high-handed functioning of Tuki, the previous chief minister. However, the road for Khandu is unlikely to be smooth as the rebels, given their lack of numbers, have conceded defeat for the time being rather than be disqualified under the anti-defection law.
What has happened in Arunachal Pradesh is a replay of the way the Congress lost power in Uttarakhand following defections and later regained it following the intervention of the courts.
The central government and the BJP on Saturday tried to distance themselves from the embarrassment in Arunachal Pradesh. Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said: "The BJP and the central government have nothing to do with whatever is happening in Arunachal Pradesh. The political instability has been happening in the past seven months due to the division within the Congress. We have nothing to do with the internal matter of the Congress.”
In Itanagar, Khandu said: "Now there are no differences and the Congress is united at the intervention of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi."
A five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court earlier this week unanimously restored the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh and quashed the Governor’s orders that had advanced the session of Arunachal’s legislative assembly from January 14 to December 16 last year. The apex court quashed all of the directions of the Governor that had precipitated the constitutional crisis in the northeastern border state.
However, the order on Arunachal is unprecedented since it has called for restoring a government even after a subsequent government has taken the oath of office.
Earlier this year, first the Nainital High Court and then the Supreme Court had quashed the central rule in Uttarakhand and paved the way for the Harish Rawat-government to be reinstated.
In the wake of the Uttarakhand order, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, a noted constitutional lawyer, said in Parliament: “Step by step, brick by brick, the edifice of India’s legislature is being destroyed due to judicial activism.” At a press conference a few days later, Jaitley advised the judiciary that it needed to blend activism with restrain and not interfere in the sphere of the executive.
