SC restores democracy despite Centre's effort to murder it: Azad

Hailing the Supreme Court's move to restore the Congress Government in Arunachal Pradesh, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday said democracy has been restored despite the Central Government tried its best to murder democracy in the state.

"I would like to congratulate the SC for this landmark judgment. Democracy has been restored despite the Central Government tried its best to mull democracy, to kill democracy and to murder democracy in so far as Arunachal Pradesh is concerned and subsequently in Uttarakhand," Azad told ANI.

The Congress general secretary said the entire country should be thankful to the apex court for restoring the government and making a landmark decision.

The apex court quashed "message and direction" issued by Arunachal Pradesh Governor J.P. Rajkhowa and restored status quo as on December 15 when Tuki was the chief minister.

"The SC has quashed all the notifications issued by the Governor on December 9 and has also restored status quo as on December 15 when Tuki was the chief minister," Vivek Tankha, the lawyer appearing for the Congress Party, told the media.

"Pursing which the assembly was convened on July 16 to remove Speaker Wangki Lowang and subsequently on July 17 to pass a no confidence motion," he added.

The Congress, which had 47 MLAs seats in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of its lawmakers rebelled. Eleven BJP MLAs backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the government. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified.

The leader of the dissident faction, Kalikho Pul, was sworn-in as the chief minister on February 19 with the support of the 20 Congress rebels and 11 legislators of the BJP.