Two senior BJP leaders in Arunachal Pradesh return to Congress fold ahead of Lok Sabha elections

Itanagar: Two senior BJP leaders on Saturday returned to the Congress’ fold ahead of the elections, three years after joining the saffron party. The fresh blow to the BJP came within a month of former chief minister Gegong Apang’s quitting the saffron party, citing unhappiness with its functioning. The former state ministers — Atum Welly and Tatar Kipa — resigned from the primary membership of the BJP and joined the Congress at a function organised at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan. [caption id=“attachment_5707281” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. News18[/caption] Gegong Apang is yet to join any political party as of now. The two senior BJP leaders alleged that the saffron party was not following norms and procedures in selecting candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls. Both Welly and Kipa, in similar letters to state BJP president Tapir Gao on Thursday, said that they were tendering their resignations from both the primary and active memberships of the party and from all portfolios assigned to them because the party had violated the norms and procedures by announcing the MLA candidates in advance and not following the resolution taken in the party’s state executive meeting. Both Welly and Kipa were ministers in the Congress government in the state.