Congress set to retain Arunachal

The Congress was on Sunday poised to retain power in Arunachal Pradesh having bagged 25 seats, six of short of majority on its own in the 60-member state assembly with counting for 14 more seats to be taken up on Monday.

Independents, mostly rebel Congressmen, emerged as the second largest legislative group with 12 seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party, which drew a blank in 1999, opened its account with six seats.

The Nationalist Congress Party won two seats and the Arunachal Congress secured one out of a total 46 seats for which results had been declared.

State Congress president Mukut Mithi indicated his party might take the help of independents to form the government.

The counting for 45 seats was taken up in the morning in the first phases while counting for 12 seats would be taken up in the second phase on Monday. The Congress has won three seats unopposed.

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The counting for three seats were taken up only in the afternoon because polling parties from the assembly segments could not return in time to the counting centres, state Chief Electoral Officer M K Parida said.

Among the winners for Congress was the chief of state unit and chief ministerial candidate Mukut Mithi who retained the Roing seat defeating the BJP's Laeta Umbrey.

Other important winners for the Congress were Omak Apang, son of outgoing chief minister Gegong Apang, who defeated former Union minister T Tapak (BJP).

Former Congress MP Jarbom Gamlin also romped home defeating former party colleague and state power minister Lijum Ronya (independent), ending the latter's winning streak in several elections.

However, the Congress lost a number of heavyweights, including home minister L Wanglat, PWD minister Lechi Legi and parliamentary affairs minister T L Rajkumar.