Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 15 Jun: Former deputy speaker and Changlang North MLA, Tesam Pongte, has been elected as the speaker of the 8th Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly.
Pongte is the 18th speaker of the Assembly since August 1975.
Born on 30 March, 1975 to Khodong Pongte (father) and Likkom Pongte (mother), Pongte belongs to the Tutsa community of Changlang district. He started his leadership career as a student leader at the government higher secondary school in Changlang. He also served his community as the general secretary and the assistant general secretary of the All Tutsa Welfare Society.
He first got elected as an MLA on a BJP ticket in 2014. He was also the vice president of the state BJP and the national secretary of the BJP ST Morcha.
Pongte has served as parliamentary secretary for the DoTCL, and as trade & commerce minister. He was reelected from the Changlang North assembly constituency in 2019, and was subsequently elected as the deputy speaker unopposed.
Likabali MLA Kardo Nyigyor has been unanimously elected as the deputy speaker. Nyigyor is the 20th deputy speaker of the state Assembly.
Born in Ditten village in Gensi circle of Lower Siang district to late Yukar Nyigyor (father), Nyigyor rose from grassroots politics as an anchal samiti member in 2008-2013, and was later elected as a ZPM.
Nyigyor’s mainstream political career began when he was elected as MLA from the Likabali constituency in the by-election in 2017 after the then representative Jomde Kena’s untimely demise. He got reelected in 2019 and since then has been representing the Likabali assembly constituency in the state Assembly.
