NEW DELHI: The Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) on Sunday returned to power in Sikkim for the second consecutive term by a landslide victory, winning 31 seats in the 32-member Assembly. Similarly, the BJP retained power in Arunachal Pradesh for the third time in a row, winning 46 seats in the 60-member Assembly, bagging five more seats compared to its 2019 tally.
Voting for the Assembly seats was held in both states along with the Lok Sabha elections on April 19. In Arunachal Pradesh, the ruling BJP had already won 10 seats unopposed. Chief Minister Pema Khandu was one of the 10 party candidates who won unopposed.
The National People’s Party (NPP) won five seats, People’s Party of Arunachal two and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP three seats. The Congress could manage only one seat while Independent candidates won in three constituencies.
Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said the BJP’s sweeping victory in Arunachal Pradesh Assembly poll was indicative of the Lok Sabha election results. He said the results were reflective of people’s faith in the party’s “politics of good governance and development”.
In Sikkim, the SKM led by CM Prem Singh Tamang won 31 seats, while the opposition Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), which ruled Sikkim for 25 years in a row till 2019, could manage only one seat. Even its president Pawan Kumar Chamling lost in the two constituencies he contested. Tamang won two seats and the party bagged 58.38 per cent of the votes polled. The SKM had won 17 seats in the 2019 Assembly poll.
The BJP contested from 31 segments, but failed to win even a single seat. It had 12 MLAs in the outgoing House. The party had severed its alliance with the SKM after talks on seat-sharing formula failed. Five of the 12 BJP MLAs then joined the SKM and contested on its symbol.
Meanwhile, PM Narendra Modi hailed Tamang for the big win and Khandu and the people of Arunachal Pradesh for BJP’s landslide win.
Much waters have flown down Teesta and Rangeet rivers since Tamang rebelled against the then Sikkim CM Pawan Kumar Chamling and subsequently formed his own party, the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, in 2013.
Fifteen years after quitting the Sikkim Democratic Front in 2009, he decimated Chamling’s party, scripting history by winning 31 of 32 seats. Tamang, 56, regarded as an able organiser, administrator and fiery politician, rode on a slew of development and welfare measures, besides his own personal charisma, to massively increase his party’s seats and vote share. After having walked out of prison, where he was lodged for one year after being convicted in a corruption case, in 2017, Tamang had revamped his fledging party, which went on to unseat Chamling from power only two years later, winning 17 seats in 2019.
In Arunachal, Khandu, a sports enthusiast and music aficionado, emerged as a tall leader over the years, especially after a constitutional crisis in 2016 that led to the imposition of President’s rule. Khandu was also regarded as a strategist who, through political manoeuvring, brought the BJP to power for the first time in Arunachal. His political odyssey began after his father and former CM Dorjee Khandu’s death in a copter crash in 2011.