A very relieved Nabam Tuki has appealed to his former colleagues and fellow Congress MLAs who had defected to the Kaliko Pul-led People’s Party of Arunachal Pradesh (PPAP) to return to the Congress fold.
“Khaliko Pul was running an illegal, unconstitutional government. That has been made clear by the Supreme Court ruling today. Some of my Congress colleagues who defected to that side should realise this and come back to us. I appeal to my old colleagues to come back to the party and work for the real development of Arunachal Pradesh,” he told The Hindu .
When Mr. Pul had proven his majority in the Assembly, he had the support of 40 MLAs, 27 of whom were from the Congress, 11 from the BJP and two independents.
Mr. Pul, in fact, stuck to his numerically proven majority in the Assembly when he spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the grand North Eastern Democratic Alliance (the northeastern offshoot of the NDA) function being held in Guwahati. “Politics is a game of numbers, we have the numbers,” he said.
BJP general secretary in charge of the northeastern state Ram Madhav refused to comment on the particulars of the ruling. He said the party needed to go into it. “We will examine the matter before commenting.”
Mr. Tuki, in response, said his next move would be to call a meeting of his MLAs and try and get as many of his former colleagues to return.
Governor J.P. Rajkhowa, whose decision to call the Assembly session a month early was scrapped by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, “needs to reflect on what the ruling says about him and his unconstitutional actions.” “He should voluntarily resign as his position, after the Supreme Court ruling has become untenable,” Mr. Tuki added.
