The Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly election of 2009 took place in October 2009, concurrently with the assembly elections in

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

and

Haryana Haryana () is a States and union territories of India, state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out after the linguistic reorganisation of Punjab, India, Punjab on 1 November 1966. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with les ...

. The elections were held in the state for all 60 Assembly seats on 2009-10-13. The results were declared on 2009-10-22.

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union ter ...

Dorjee Khandu's

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

party came back to power in the state with an increased majority, winning 42 seats in the 60 seat Assembly.

Previous Assembly

In the 2004 Arunachal Pradesh Assembly election, Congress won 34 of the 60 seats and Congress leader Gegong Apang was elected as the Congress Legislative Party and was sworn in as the Chief Minister. Apang had defected from the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

just a few weeks before the election. The BJP won win 9 seats. However, in April 2007, 29 Congress legislators formally supported a change of leadership in the state Congress. The dissidents also claimed support from 2 NCP, 1

Arunachal Congress Arunachal Congress (AC) was a regional political party in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. It was founded in 1996 as a splinter group of the Indian National Congress, when the local party leader and Chief Minister Gegong Apang revolted ...

and 11 independent legislators. Apang, Arunachal's longest serving chief minister, was forced to step down on 2007-04-09 when the Congress legislators elected Power Minister Dorjee Khandu as the new Congress Legislative Party leader. Khandu was sworn in as the state's seventh Chief Minister by Nagaland Governor K. Sankaranarayanan on 2007-04-10. In June of the same year, Khandu's Government received further strengthening when 8 out of the 9 BJP MLAs joined Congress, taking the strength of the party to 41.

Background

The tenure of the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly was scheduled to expire on 2009-10-24. So the

Election Commission of India The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body established by Constitution of India, the Constitution of the Republic of India empowered to conduct free and fair elections in the Republic of India. It is headed by a Chief Ele ...

announced on 2009-08-31 that the election to the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly would be held in October 2009. Though

Nationalist Congress Party The Nationalist Congress Party is one of the List of political parties in India#State parties, state parties in India and is one of the major political parties in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, Maharashtra with a recognised state party statu ...

and

All India Trinamool Congress The All India Trinamool Congress (; AITC), simply known as Trinamool Congress, is an Indian political party that is mainly influential in the state of West Bengal. It was founded by Mamata Banerjee on 1 January 1998 as a breakaway faction f ...

were Congress' allies at the Centre, in Arunachal Pradesh, they fought the election against Congress. The BJP was also in the fray in Arunachal, having formed their 1st Government in the North-East after Apang and his supporters had joined the BJP in August 2003.

Schedule

Parties contested

Results

! colspan=8 , , - ! colspan="2" rowspan="2" width="150" , Parties and Coalitions ! colspan="3" , Popular vote ! colspan="3" , Seats , - ! width="70" , Vote ! width="45" , % ! width ="50", +/- ! Contested ! Won ! +/- , - , style="background-color: " , ,

, 2,89,501 , 50.38 , , 60 , 42 , , - , style="background-color: ", ,

, 1,11,098 , 19.33 , , 36 , 5 , , - , style="background-color: ", ,

, 86,406 , 15.04 , , 26 , 5 , , - , style="background-color: ", , People's Party of Arunachal , 41,780 , 7.27 , , 11 , 4 , , - , style="background-color:" , ,

, 29,929 , 5.21 , , 18 , 3 , , - , style="background-color: ", ,

Janata Dal (United) Janata Dal (United) ("People's Party (United)"), abbreviated as JD(U), is a Social democracy, social-democratic and secular List of political parties in India, Indian political party, rooted mainly in East India, eastern and Northeast India, ...

, 3,584 , 0.62 , , 3 , 0 , , - , style="background-color:grey", , Independents , 12,364 , 2.15 , , 3 , 1 , , - , colspan="8" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", , - style="font-weight:bold;" , align="left" colspan="2" , Total , 5,74,662 , 100.00 , style="background-color:#E9E9E9", , 60 , 100.00 , ±0 Source:

By constituency

Government Formation

The Congress party won 42 of the 60 seats in the Assembly, including 3 uncontested seats - Dorjee Khandu from Mukto, Tsewang Dhondup from Tawang and Jambey Tashi from Lumla. Seasoned Congressman, seven times MLA and former chief minister, Gegong Apang, and his son Omak Apang both lost the elections. While Gegong lost to

, his son was defeated by

candidate. Without the competition from Gegong, Dorjee Khandu was smoothly elected as the Congress Legislative Party leader on 2009-10-24. Khandu was sworn in for his 2nd term as the Chief Minister by

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

Joginder Jaswant Singh General Joginder Jaswant Singh, PVSM, AVSM, VSM, ADC (born 17 September 1945), commonly known as JJ Singh, is an Indian politician and former Army Chief. He was the 21st Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) of the Indian Army. He was appointed o ...

at the Darbar Hall of the

Itanagar Itanagar () is the capital and largest town of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The seat of Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, the seat of government of Arunachal Pradesh, and the seat of Gauhati High Court permanent bench at Nahar ...

Raj Bhawan on 2009-10-25.

References

{{Arunachal Pradesh elections State Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh 2000s in Arunachal Pradesh 2009 State Assembly elections in India October 2009 in India