Congress dubs merger of 42 Arunachal MLAs as 'illegal'

Dubbing the decision of 42 Arunachal Pradesh Congress MLAs to join the regional People's Party of Arunachal (PPA) as 'illegal', the Congress Party on Saturday said it would like to see how the courts react to this defection and merger.

"The merger is illegal. If you peruse the judgement of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the matter of the Janhit Congress, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had held that merger to be illegal. To the best of my knowledge, the judgement has not been challenged. So, therefore we will have to wait and see whether the courts actually hold this defection to be a merger or as the law stands this merger is held to be a defection and therefore illegal," Congress leader Manish Tewari told ANI.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu yesterday resigned from the Congress and said the decision to resign from the grand old party was unanimous, adding that the aspirations of the people of the state is very regional in character and it was necessary to have a synergy between the two.

This is the second time in seven months that the PPA has been gifted a government in the frontier state.

In the 60-member House with an effective strength of 58, the Congress had the support of 47 MLAs, including two Independents, while Opposition BJP has 11 members.

Khandu was sworn-in as the ninth Arunachal Chief Minister on July 17.

In a dramatic turnaround in this land-locked state on July 16, Congress replaced Nabam Tuki by choosing Khandu as the new Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader, who staked claim to power on the basis of support of 45 party MLAs along with two Independents.