Arunachal Pradesh BJP loses two senior leaders to Congress

ITANAGAR: Less than a month after former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang resigned from BJP, two former ministers followed suit and joined Congress.
Senior leaders Atum Welly and Tatar Kipa resigned from primary membership of the saffron party and joined Congress on Saturday at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan here.
As Apang had done, the two former ministers also resigned from the party citing their “unhappiness about the party’s functioning”.
The leaders alleged that BJP is not following norms and procedures in selecting candidates for the assembly polls due in April or May this year. The state’s assembly election will coincide with the Lok Sabha polls.
Both Welly and Kipa, in similar letters to state BJP president Tapir Gao on Thursday, said 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.