Apang steps down, Dorjee Khamdu to be new Arunachal CM

ITANAGAR: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minsiter Gegong Apang has decided to resign after a CLP meeting elected power minister Dorjee Khamdu as Congresss Legislature Party leader ending an eleven-day political crisis in the state.

Party sources said a swearing-in-ceremony of Khamdu as the new CM is expected this evening.

Earlier, the ruling Congress legislators elected state Power minister Dorjee Khandu as the new CLP leader replacing Chief Minister Gegong Apang at a meeting on Monday.

Union Parliamentary Affairs minister P R Dasmunshi who came here as an observer told newsmen that Gegong Apang himself proposed the name of Khandu.

An overwhelming majority of the legislators accepted the proposal.

The demand for removal of Apang and replacing him with Khandu was made by as many as 25 MLAs out of the total 33 Congress legislators. They had camped in Delhi for over 10 days to press for the change in leadership.

The dissidents arrived on Monday from Delhi and headed straight for the CLP meeting with police escorts.

In Delhi, they met several Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi, her political secretary Ahmed Patel and Oscar Fernandes, who was present alongwith Dasmunshi as an observer.

The dissidents had told the leadership that Apang, the country's second longest chief minister, had lost the confidence of the majority of the Congress MLAs who had been unhappy over his "dictatorial policies and distribution of portfolios in the council of ministers."

The 60-member assembly also has nine BJP, two each of NCP and Arunachal Congress MLAs and 14 Independents.