Dramatic Cong move stuns BJP in Arunachal

Continued from Page 1 floor test or the swearingin. 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 SC’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’s ninth CM.