Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, Jan 15: Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang has resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), stating that the party is no longer following the principles of late Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Apang, who was the first BJP chief minister in the Northeast region, sent his resignation letter to party chief Amit Shah on Tuesday, urging Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remember the teachings of Vajpayee about “Raj dharma,” and stating: “Perhaps history will judge you kindly.”
“I am disappointed to see that the present-day BJP is no longer following the principles of the late Vajpayeeji. The party is now a platform to seek power; it serves a leadership which hates decentralization or democratic decision-making and no longer believes in the values the party was founded for,” Apang said in his resignation letter.
“From issues like grassroots delivery of government schemes to matters like the Naga peace talks, the Chakma-Hajong issue, the citizenship bill, telecommunications and real-time digital connectivity, and peaceful and cordial relations with neighbours like Bangladesh, Myanmar and China, both the party and the Modi government are not addressing the real issues,” he said.
Apang also pointed out that the BJP had not earned the people’s mandate in 2014 in Arunachal Pradesh.
“The BJP leadership used every dirty trick in the trade and installed the late Kalikho Pul as chief minister. Despite an adverse Supreme Court ruling, a BJP government was reinstalled. Neither a proper investigation was done in Pul’s suicide nor the present BJP leadership thought of morality and ethics by installing many more BJP governments in the Northeast,” said the former CM.
He further alleged that, during the state level executive committee meeting held at Pasighat in November last year, BJP general secretary Ram Madhav did not allow members and office bearers to put forward their views.
“The BJP in the past always sought the views of the legislature party members and then decided on leadership issues,” Apang said as he questioned Pema Khandu’s name being put forward as CM before the election.
“It is neither the norm nor the tradition that the cadre-based party like BJP had followed,” he said.
