Arunachal Congress

Arunachal Congress ( AC ) was a regional political party in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, founded in 1996 and probably inactive or dissolved since about 2011 .

Party history

In the mid-1990s, the Indian Congress Party found itself in a crisis. Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao , who has headed a minority Congress of the Congress Party since 1991 , faced a plethora of domestic political problems and, towards the end of his term of office, allegations of corruption were raised against him. The Congress Party had continuously lost votes in the previous all-India elections in 1989 and 1991 and appeared to be in a steady decline, while the rival Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party seemed to gain inexorably from election to election.

A subject that caused unrest and dissatisfaction in Arunachal Pradesh and, according to statements by local politicians, a major motive for the later founding of the party was the refugee problem there. The refugees were members of the Chakma and Hajong ethnic groups , the former mostly Buddhists, the latter Hindus, who had fled to India from what was then East Pakistan and later Bangladesh in the decades after the partition of India in 1947 . In 1964 the Indian government temporarily settled around 35,000 Chakmas in the area of the then North-East Frontier Agency , later Arunachal Pradesh. After Arunachal Pradesh gained full state status in 1987, the local government tried to get rid of these refugees. On September 6, 1995, at the instigation of the government of Arunachal Pradesh under Chief Minister Gegong Apang (Congress Party), an all-party conference was held to discuss the refugee problem in Arunachal Pradesh. A mass rally on September 20, 1995 in Naharlagun passed a resolution calling for the deportation of “foreign refugees”.

In the 1996 parliamentary election , Chief Minister Gegong Apang did not support the official candidates of the Congress Party, but rather two independents in the two Lok Sabha constituencies of Arunachal Pradesh. They then also won the election, while the election as a whole was lost for the Congress party and cost them government power in Delhi. The two defeated Congress Party candidates then started a campaign against Apang and demanded his replacement as Chief Minister and his exclusion from the party because of anti-party behavior and alleged corruption. The conflict between the Chief Minister and his local supporters and the central party leadership in Delhi escalated and shortly after September 20, 1996 he declared his resignation from the Congress party and the creation of a new Arunachal Congress party . The vast majority of Congress Party MPs in the Arunachal Congress parliament followed him in this move, so his government continued to have a parliamentary majority.

In 1997, a large proportion of the leadership of the Arunachal Congress joined the People's Party of Arunachal . In the 1998 general election , AC won both of the state's Lok Sabha constituencies. After that, however, a rapid loss of importance set in. In the election to the regional parliament of Arunachal Pradesh, AC could only win one of the 60 constituencies. In the all- India election the following year , when AC entered into an alliance with the BJP, the latter lost the two Lok Sabha constituencies to candidates from the Congress Party. On August 30, 2004, the party founder and some leaders joined the BJP. The party he founded, however, continued to exist for a few years as a small splinter party.

AC was recognized as a federal party by the Indian Election Commission in October 2006 , but lost this status again in 2009 due to insufficient electoral success. The party has not taken part in elections since then

Election results

The following table shows the electoral districts (mandates) won in elections to the Lok Sabha and in elections to the parliament of Arunachal Pradesh. The state of Arunachal Pradesh is divided into 2 constituencies for the Lok Sabha and 60 constituencies for the regional parliament.

year	choice	percent	Parliament seats
1998	India Election for Lok Sabha in 1998	0.05	2/543
1999	India Election for Lok Sabha 1999	0.02	0/543
1999	General election in Arunachal Pradesh 1999	16.68	1/60
2004	India Election for Lok Sabha 2004	0.02	0/543
2004	Parliamentary election in Arunachal Pradesh 2004	3.88	2/60
2009	India Election for Lok Sabha 2009	0.01	0/543

Individual evidence

↑ M. Amarjeet Singh: Arunachal Pradesh: The Chakma-Hajong Refugee Crisis. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, March 30, 2005, accessed June 17, 2015 .
↑ ^a ^b Nani Bath: Apang 'Congress (AC) faces imminent decay. The Arunachal Times, January 7, 2011, accessed June 17, 2015 .
↑ ^a ^b Election Results - Full Statistical Reports. Indian Election Commission, accessed October 12, 2014 (English, election results of all Indian elections to the Lok Sabha and the parliaments of the states since independence).
↑ Jolt to BJP: Arunachal CM, Cabinet join Congress. rediff.com, August 28, 2004, accessed June 17, 2015 .

[1] M. Amarjeet Singh: Arunachal Pradesh: The Chakma-Hajong Refugee Crisis. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, March 30, 2005, accessed June 17, 2015 .

[AT-2] Nani Bath: Apang 'Congress (AC) faces imminent decay. The Arunachal Times, January 7, 2011, accessed June 17, 2015 .

[IEC-3] Election Results - Full Statistical Reports. Indian Election Commission, accessed October 12, 2014 (English, election results of all Indian elections to the Lok Sabha and the parliaments of the states since independence).

[4] Jolt to BJP: Arunachal CM, Cabinet join Congress. rediff.com, August 28, 2004, accessed June 17, 2015 .