ITANAGAR, April 5 – Opposition Congress and a regional party Arunachal Congress (AC) have forged an alliance and decided to share the two Lok Sabha seats in Arunachal Pradesh, reports PTI. Addressing a press conference the state Congress chief and former Chief Minister, Mukut Mithi said Congress has decided to re-nominate Wangcha Rajkumar from Arunachal East constituency, while AC president Kamen Ringu will contest Arunachal West seat in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections.
Asked why Congress which won both the seats in last elections is sacrificing the West parliamentary seat for Arunachal Congress which is not a significant force specially after its lone MLA Gegong Apang, the present Chief Minister left it and joined BJP with all its supporters, Mithi said we have decided to go for an alliance and Ringu should be taken as our candidate.
Party sources however, said that as a strategy Congress has agreed to support Ringu to give a tough fight to BJP candidate Khiren Rijiju in Arunachal West constituency. They said it will be difficult for Chief Minister Gegong Apang to criticise Arunachal Congress which he had founded eight years ago after leaving Congress.
Mithi said that both he and Ringu talked for over two months for forging the alliance and both of them went to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and she approved it. Ringu who was also present at the press conference expressed the hope that both the parties would jointly fight ruling BJP in the coming assembly election due to be held in September next. BJP has already announced the names of its candidates for both the Lok Sabha seats. Tapir Gao would contest from Arunachal East.