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Apang stakes claim to form Arunachal Govt.

Itanagar July 28. The leader of the newly-formed United Democratic Front (UDF) and former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Gegong Apang, today met the State Governor, V.C. Pande, at the Raj Bhavan here and paraded 42 legislators, including himself, to stake claim to form the Government.

The meeting lasted about 90 minutes and the Governor's decision was awaited on whether he would ask the Congress Chief Minister, Mukut Mithi, to resign or prove his majority in the House.

Mr. Pande had on Sunday night directed Mr. Apang to line up all the MLAs supporting him.

Soon after meeting the Governor, Mr. Apang, Arunachal Congress chief, told reporters that the Mithi Government, which he claimed had been reduced to a minority, should resign. Mr. Apang, who was ousted as Chief Minister by Mr. Mithi in January 1999, said he was ready to prove his majority on the floor of the State Assembly if an emergency session was summoned.

Giving details of the constituents of the 42-member UDF, Mr. Apang claimed that 38 of the Congress Legislature Party's 56 members had broken away from the party and that the split had been approved and accepted by the Speaker today.

Others in the UDF included two associate members of the Congress, one from the Arunachal Congress (Mr. Apang himself) and L. Wanglat, an unattached member, he said.

Twenty-three of the 39-member Council of Ministers had tendered their resignation from the Mithi Government. "You can ask every individual legislator whether they have been confined or anything was being paid to them," Mr. Apang said refuting Mr. Mithi's allegation that he had been paid Rs. five crores by the NSCN (I-M) last year to topple the Mithi Government.

"The Ministers and MLAs are qualified and honourable members of the House and are not purchasable commodities... All of them were frustrated with (Mr.) Mithi's style of running the Government and once again (they) made me the leader in the interests of the State," Mr. Apang said.

On Sunday, the UDF came into being amid fast-paced developments when Mr. Mithi was mostly out of the State. Rebel Congress legislators quit the party, formed the Congress (D) and joined hands with Mr. Apang, Mr. Wanglat and the two associate Congress members to set up the Front.

At a press conference, the State Congress general secretary, T.C. Tok, alleged that the NDA Government at the Centre was behind the game to topple the Mithi Government and that some anti-socials had kept the party legislators confined. The APCC has called a 12-hour "chakka bandh" from 6 a.m. on July 30 in protest, he added. — PTI

(See Editorial in Opinion section)

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