Arunachal Pradesh: PPA dismisses APCC's claims of pre-poll alliance

ITANAGAR

: The Peoples' Party of Arunachal (PPA) on Friday dismissed claims made by

Arunachal Pradesh

Congress Committee (APCC) president Takam Sanjoy of forging a pre-poll alliance with the party.


"The party with regional identity will go alone to contest in all the 60 assembly seats and two

Lok Sabha

in the April 11 simultaneous polls and will soon announce the list of candidates," PPA chairman Kamen Ringu told reporters at Arunachal Press Club (APC) here.

Saying the party doesn't endorse president Kahfa Bengia and secretary general Kaling Jerang's discussions with Congress, Raingu elaborated, "We have temporarily suspended them for hobnobbing with Congress on seat sharing without the knowledge of party's executive body. We will not forge any alliance with any national political parties but will contest the polls alone keeping our regional ideology intact," Ringu said.

Lashing out at the national parties like Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for neglecting the state, Ringu went on to allege that they were trying to lure potential PPA candidates. On their poll agenda, Ringu said it would be inclusive development in the interest of the indigenous people of the state. "The people of the state are fed up with the lip services of Congress as well as BJP government at the Centre," Ringu said.

"Our main efforts will be to pursue the Centre to amend Article 317 (H) of Constitution dealing with the state of Arunachal Pradesh to make it at par with Article 371 (A) dealing with the state of Nagaland and Article 371 (G) which deals with Mizoram, so that the people of the state enjoy ownership in the state's resources," he pointed out.

On criteria of issuing tickets, the PPA chief informed it would be based on the clean image of the candidate. PPA had won four seats during the 2009 assembly polls, while in 2014 assembly polls the party won five seats in the state. Later all the five MLAs joined Congress. The frontier state has seen five governments under three chief ministers in the past five years. Chief minister Pema Khandu, along with 33 MLAs, switched from PPA to BJP in July 2017 to form the government with 12 BJP MLAs and independent candidates.

Khandu was with Congress when he formed the government in July 2016. Before Khandu became the CM, political uncertainty dominated the state after senior minister Kalikho Pul broke away from the Congress government of Nabam Tuki with 24 MLAs to form a PPA government in February.

Pul's government was removed after a Supreme Court verdict reinstated Tuki but with most Congress MLAs backing Khandu, Tuki had to resign in July 2016. A dejected Pul committed suicide in Itanagar in August that year. Next month Khandu left Congress with 42 MLAs to join the PPA.