ITANAGAR, Feb 12: Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Takam Sanjoy said that the BJP’s ‘Congress mukt Bharat’ (Congress-free India) dream will remain unfulfilled.
Addressing party workers and leaders at a meeting at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan here on Sunday, Sanjoy said the BJP has never won any election in Arunachal Pradesh. The meeting was held to welcome around 197 BJP office bearers of the Lekang assembly constituency of Namsai district who merged with the Congress.
“The present BJP government in the state was formed by importing Congress MLAs,” Sanjoy said.
He said the en bloc merger of BJP office bearers of the Lekang assembly constituency with the Congress, prior to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to the state, “has sent a clear and louder message about the swelling Congress.”
He also ridiculed the proposal to have the state civil secretariat inaugurated by the prime minister, “years after it started functioning.”
Referring to the demand of Lekang’s inhabitants, mainly the Deoris, Mishings, Ahoms, Adivasis, Morangs and Motaks, Sanjoy said they have every right to demand land possession certificates (LPC) as they have land in their possession.
“Would refusal of LPCs to them on the ground that they are not STs not mean that Lekang is not within Arunachal?” he questioned. The document submitted to the state government on PRC long ago by a high-powered committee, which he had headed as MP, would be handed over, he assured.
“You have been sidelined for not electing the right leader, but the Congress does not belong to AICC president Rahul Gandhi or the APCC president alone, as it is a chain linking every member,” he said, and applauded the people of Lekang for taking the lead in reflecting the “true colour of the BJP.”
The ruling BJP won the Hayuliang bye-election with a thin margin, he said, adding that the Congress never advocates a ‘BJP mukt Bharat’.
The BJP mandal committee leaders who joined the Congress said that they have joined the party to register their opposition to the BJP, particularly Lekang MLA and Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein, for making false promises.
They said their villages are threatened by annual flood in the Noa-Dihing river, and lamented that their leader neither visited them when they were in peril nor found any tangible solution during his 28-year rule.
Senior INC leaders including former minister Bida Taku, general secretaries Chera Taya, Byabang Nukh and Tamchi Tahar, spokesman Hina Kamdir Tok, secretary Modam Dini, Seva Dal chief Kipa Kaha, and NSUI president Teli Mello Kamdir, besides a host of office bearers welcomed the newcomers to the party fold.
