Dissidents lobby for Khandu as next Arunachal CM

New Delhi, Apr 2 (UNI) After Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh is set to be the second Congress-ruled state in the North East where infighting is likely to force a change in guard.

Dissidence in Meghalaya Congress had forced the party high command to replace J D Rymbai with the former Chief Minister D D Lapang in March, this year.

Corruption charges were mounting against the incumbent Chief Minister Gegong Apang who was also accused of ignoring state's development and welfare of the poor. Several Congress leaders from Arunachal Pradesh had been camping here for the past three days lobbying against the Chief Minister and proposing the name of the state Power Minister Dorjee Khandu to replace Mr Apang.

In a 60-member House, the Congress has 34 members of which 32 are dissident Congress MLAs.

According to sources, the 32 dissident MLA's stayed in a five star hotel here instead of the State guest house to ensure that the Chief Minister did not ''succeed in winning back some of the dissidents to his side''.

Twenty-six of these dissidents also elected Mr Khandu as their new leader. The other six were absent.

The leaders later had a half-an-hour meeting with Union Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes who is also the party in-charge for the North East affairs and apprised him of the ''ground realities''.

Mr Fernandes has assured the delegation that a final decision in this regard will be taken in consultation with the party high command after he returned from Bangkok, they added.

Chief Minister Gegong Apang who was also in Delhi, however, denied that there was any threat to his position. But he declined to comment on the dissidents meeting with Mr Fernandes. He merely said that it was a party matter and he would speak about it only at a party forum.

UNI