 "Arunachal Pradesh CM Pema Khandu (left) with BJP leader and party’s state election-in-charge Ashok Singhal in Itanagar on Sunday Photo: PTI")
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has retained power in Arunachal Pradesh by emerging victorious in the Assembly elections by securing 46 of total 60 seats. The party won 10 seats uncontested.
Following the counting of votes on Sunday, the BJP not only better its tally from 41 seats that it won in 2019, the party also saw an increase in the vote share to 54.57 per cent from 51 per cent.
Chief Minister Pema Khandu, who bagged the Mukto seat, was among the 10 BJP candidates who won without opposition. The other uncontested seats were Itanagar, Bomdila, Chowkham, Hayuliang, Roing, Sagalee, Tali, Taliha, and Ziro Hapoli. The remaining 50 seats, along with Arunachal’s two Lok Sabha seats, went to polls on April 19.
This victory marks the BJP’s third consecutive term in the northeastern state. The party first came to power in the state in December 2016 when 33 legislators from the People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA), led by Khandu, joined the BJP. The 43 PPA legislators had earlier broken away from then ruling Congress.
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Out of the 50 contested seats, the BJP secured 36. The National People’s Party (NPEP), the Conrad Sangma-led ruling party of Meghalaya, emerged as the second largest party, winning five seats and securing a vote share of 16.11 per cent. Its candidates were runner-ups in 13 seats.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), despite losing its “national party” status last year, won three seats and secured a vote share of 10.43 per cent. The Congress managed to win only one seat, while the PPA won two.
Taking to X, Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the people of Arunachal Pradesh. “The people of this wonderful state have given an unequivocal mandate to the politics of development… Our party will keep working with even greater vigour for the state’s growth,” he posted.
Arunachal Pradesh is the biggest state in the northeast with an area of 83,743 sq km (2.5 per cent of India’s area). The state also has higher per capita income than that at the national level.
In the past nine years, the per capita income of the state has been higher in the range of 18-43 per cent than the all-India level. Even then the percentage of its people under multidimensional poverty is only a tad lower than at all-India level. Rather, its urban population had slightly more people in multidimensional poverty at 5.9 per cent than 5.27 per cent at the all-India level during 2019-21.
Nearly 77 per cent of its population lives in rural areas where 15.14 per cent people faced multidimensional poverty, against 19.28 per cent at the national level during 2019-21.
Like other northeastern states, Arunachal Pradesh is too heavily dependent on the central grants and its share in the divisible pool of the union taxes for its resources. Its own tax revenue never touched 13 per cent of its revenue receipts during the past 10 years. The state did not publish regular data for inflation for urban areas. As far as rural parts are concerned, inflation has been controlled much better than at the national level in recent months. Retail inflation stood at just 3.1 per cent in its villages against 5.6 per cent in rural India in the first 11 months of the current financial year. Inflation in food and beverages was as low as 1.39 per cent in rural Arunachal Pradesh against 6.8 per cent in rural India during April-February of FY24.
Pema Khandu: The man behind BJP’s rise in Arunachal
At 45, Pema Khandu has already become the second-longest-serving chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, surpassed only by Gegong Apang, who held the position for nearly 23 years. His father, Dorjee Khandu, served as chief minister for four years before dying in a helicopter crash in April 2011.
At 45, Pema Khandu has already become the second-longest-serving chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, surpassed only by Gegong Apang, who held the position for nearly 23 years. His father, Dorjee Khandu, served as chief minister for four years before dying in a helicopter crash in April 2011.
Khandu entered the political arena in 2000, joining the Congress. Following his father’s death, he ran for the Assembly from Mukto, his father's constituency. He served as tourism minister in Nabam Tuki’s Congress government. However, his political trajectory took a sharp turn following a constitutional crisis in January 2016, which resulted in the imposition of President’s rule.
When it was lifted, Khandu found himself serving as a minister in the short-lived government led by Kalikho Pul, which was externally supported by the BJP. The Supreme Court intervened, restoring the Tuki government. Tuki soon resigned, and Khandu, then 37 years old, ascended to the position of chief minister in July 2016. In a surprising move, Khandu, along with 42 other Congress legislators, defected to the People's Party of Arunachal (PPA) in September. By December 2016, Khandu had led 33 MLAs to join the BJP. Under his leadership, the BJP triumphed in the Assembly polls held concurrently with the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, also securing both the Lok Sabha seats in the state.
As Khandu declares on his ‘X’ handle, he is an alumnus of Delhi’s Hindu College. Known for his love of sports and music, he often delights attendees at official gatherings with renditions of classics by Kishore Kumar and Mohammad Rafi. He has promoted traditional songs through talent shows in Tawang and West Kameng districts.
(With inputs from Indivjal Dhasmana)
