Ex-Arunachal Pradesh CM Gegong Apang quits BJP over Pema Khandu's appointment; tells Amit Shah party isn't 'moral or ethical'

Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday, saying he was “disappointed to see that the present day BJP is no longer following the principles of the late Vajpayeeji”. Apang served as the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh for two terms — from 1980 to 1999 and 2003 to 2007. Announcing his resignation on Twitter , he said he will now “focus on grass root problems”. Here is the copy of his resignation letter:

“The party is now a platform to seek power, it serves a leadership that hates decentralisation of democratic decision-making and no longer believes that the party founded by, for and of the cadre is only seeking to capture power,” Apang said in his resignation letter, sent to BJP president Amit Shah. [caption id=“attachment_5903681” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Gegong Apang[/caption] In the letter, the former senior BJP leader brought up how the BJP had formed the government in Arunachal Pradesh in 2014, “using every dirty trick of the trade”. He also wrote: “Neither a proper investigation was done into (former chief minister) Kalikho Pul’s suicide, nor did the present BJP leadership think of morality and ethics by installing many more BJP governments in the North East.” Claiming that BJP general secretary Ram Madhav did not allow many members and office bearers to place their views before the cadre at the state level executive committee meeting on 10 and 11 November at Pasighat, he said the way in which Pema Khandu’s name was projected for the chief minister’s post was “neither the norm nor the tradition that a cadre-based party like BJP had followed”. “The BJP in the past has always asked the views of the legislature and party members and then decided on leadership issues,” he said. “From issues like grass-root delivery of government schemes to matters like Naga peace talks, Chakma-Hajong issue, amendments of the Citizenship Bill, telecommunications and real-time digital connectivity to peaceful and cordial relation with neighbours like Bangladesh, Myanmar and China, both the party and the Modi Sarkar are not addressing the real issues,” he said, urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to remember Vajpayee’s teaching’s about “Raj Dharma”. “Perhaps history will judge you kindly.”