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Pema Khandu set to be Arunchal CM again as BJP sweeps state polls
Though the BJP leadership is yet to take an official call on who would head the next government in the state, party insiders say Khandu is the firm favourite for another term
With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) recording a landslide win under his leadership in Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday, chief minister Pema Khandu has cemented his position further as the tallest leader from the party in the largest state of northeast.
This is the second consecutive time the BJP has won an electoral victory in the state with Khandu at the helm. In 2014, the party had won 41 of the total 60 seats. This time it bettered that mark by winning 46 seats.
Though the BJP leadership is yet to take an official call on who would head the next government in the state, party insiders say Khandu is the firm favourite for another term.
“I would like to put on record my heartfelt thanks to the hard working ‘karyakartas’ (workers) of the party for the stunning victory in the assembly polls. Let me assure people of the state that the BJP-led Arunachal Pradesh government will work to fulfil all the promises as laid out in our party’s poll manifesto,” Khandu posted on X.
Khandu, along with 9 other BJP candidates including his deputy Chowna Mein, had won unopposed this time. But this is not the first such win for the CM. In 2011, he had won uncontested from his father’s seat Mukto (in a by-poll after his father’s death) and repeated the same feat in the 2014 assembly polls.
Son of former Congress chief minister Dorjee Khandu, Pema Khandu’s rise in politics began after his father’s death in a helicopter crash in 2011. A former Congress leader, the 44-year, who is a graduate in History from Hindu College in Delhi, has been a crucial factor in BJP’s rise in Arunachal Pradesh.
In 2014, BJP had won just 7 seats while Congress won 42. The Congress government led by Nabam Tuki was dismissed in January 2016 after differences among the party’s legislators over leadership.
The next government in the state was formed by Kalikho Pul who led a group of rebel Congress MLAs. But after the government was dismissed by the Supreme Court, Khandu took oath as CM of a Congress government in July 2016.
Khandu and almost all Congress MLAs (except Tuki) joined the Peoples’ Party of Arunachal a few months later and switched sides to the BJP in December 2016 after PPA expelled them. He has the distinction of heading three governments of different parties, all within one year.
Since 2019, when Khandu took oath for the second term as a BJP chief minister, he has toured the state extensively visiting remote and inaccessible areas in a bid to connect with voters and the common public. These interactions have helped boost his image as well as the BJP’s.
The past five years have not been smooth sailing for Khandu’s government. The alleged paper leak and cash-for-job scam in the state public service commission, which is being probed by the CBI and allegations against Khandu of handing prime projects to firms owned by relatives and family members are two issues which hit headlines.
But Khandu was able to overcome the negatives by engineering a pre-poll understanding with National Peoples’ Party (NPP), which ensured the party not fielding any candidates in the two Lok Sabha seats in Arunachal Pradesh. In turn, BJP, which is a coalition partner of the NPP-led government in Meghalaya, didn’t contest the two LS seats in that state.
On Sunday, NPP, which contested 20 seats emerged as the second largest party with 5 seats. It was expected that if BJP fails to muster up the numbers, NPP, which is also part of the NDA at Centre, would extend support. But that situation didn’t arise.
