Arunachal Guv Tathagata Roy asks for trust vote by Saturday, Nabam Tuki seeks more time

GUWAHATI: Arunachal Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, who was reinstated by a Supreme Court verdict, has said he will seek more time for a trust vote that acting governor Tathagata Roy ordered him to hold by Saturday, even as 43 MLAs belonging to the People’s Party of Arunachal, BJP and two Independents were moved by the Kalikho Pul camp to Guwahati fearing poaching.

Tuki, who arrived in Itanagar from New Delhi on Thursday after assuming charge as chief minister at the national capital’s Arunachal Bhavan a day earlier, convened a meeting with senior bureaucrats including chief secretary Satya Gopal.

“We will request the governor to defer the proposed floor test which is not possible within a short span of time,” he said. Speaker Nabam Rebia, who too was reinstated by a ruling of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, said that the assembly required at least 10 to 15 days for summoning a session. “It is impossible to summon the assembly at such short notice for the state has a difficult topography, communication problem and inclement weather.”

Ousted Chief Minister Kalikho Pul, meanwhile, said in Guwahati that Tuki was calling up MLAs to make them shift their loyalty and support Congress during the floor test. Pul had won a confidence vote after he and a section of the Congress crossed over to the PPA and secured the support of the BJP, amid litigation that was on at the Supreme Court.

Earlier, a statement from the Arunachal Raj Bhavan had said that for ensuring peaceful proceedings of the assembly, the same shall be videographed and the majority as aforesaid proved by division and not voice vote.

The governor sent a note to this effect was to the secretary of the legislative assembly. The governor emphasised that the conduct of proceedings, including the videography, shall strictly followprinciples laid down by the Supreme Court when it ordered a trust vote in Uttarakhand recently.

In Guwahati, Pul claimed that the disqualification of 14 MLAs and the change of party affiliations by 30 Congress MLAs to PPA were not issues before the Supreme Court in the special leave petition.

The Supreme Court order of July 13 is not an order for blanket restoration, he claimed. Congress is likely to issue whip ahead of floor test, but Pul said that the Congress whip would not apply to them. “BJP is not involved and it is wrong to say that BJP is behind whatever happened in Arunachal Pradesh.”