7 BJP candidates in Arunachal, including CM Khandu, set to win unopposed: Officials

Itanagar: Seven BJP candidates, including Chief Minister Pema Khandu, are likely to win the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly elections without a contest, election officials said on Friday.

Election officials said that scrutiny of nominations for the 58 Assembly constituencies was done on Thursday and the process in the remaining two constituencies was completed on Friday.

"After the completion of the scrutiny of the candidatures, it is found that there are no opponents against the BJP candidates in seven seats and they are likely to be declared elected unopposed on Saturday after the last date of withdrawal of nominations," an election official said.

Besides Chief Minister Khandu, who is contesting from his traditional seat Mukto in Tawang, the other six BJP nominees are Techi Ratu (Sagalee), Hage Appa (Ziro-Hapoli), Jikke Tako (Tali), Nyato Dukam (Taliha), Mutchu Mithi (Roing), and Techi Kaso (Itanagar).

The official said that after the end of the scrutiny, altogether 174 candidates are in the fray for the April 19 elections to the 60-member Assembly. They included 62 from the ruling BJP (including two substitutes), 24 from the Congress, 16 from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), 24 from the National People’s Party (NPP), 13 from the People’s Party of Arunachal (PPA), four from the Arunachal Democratic Party (ADP) and remaining are from other local parties and independents.

Elections to the Assembly and the state's two Lok Sabha seats -- Arunachal West and Arunachal East – would be held on the same day on April 19, the first phase of 7-phase parliamentary elections.

For the two Lok Sabha seats, 14 nominations were found valid after scrutiny of nomination papers on Thursday.

Eight candidates including Union Minister and BJP nominee Kiren Rijiju and state Congress President Nabam Tuki, are in the fray in Arunachal West while six candidates including BJP’s sitting MP Tapir Gao and Congress’ Bosiram Siram are in the fray for the Arunachal East.

Former Chief Minister Tuki, who has served 30 years as an MLA from Sagalee, opted to contest the parliamentary elections this time.

In the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP had won 41 seats. Later, seven MLAs from other parties joined the BJP.

The counting of votes for the Assembly polls will be held on June 2 and for the Lok Sabha seats on June 4.