For many Indian politicians any party is good enough as long as it helps them stay in power. The caretaker chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Mr Gegong Apang, is an old hand at switching parties in order to cling to power. His return to the Congress was thus a matter of time. But few would take seriously his justification for the latest somersault — that he was frustrated with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “false promises” and that the “ideology and philosophy of the Congress run deep in our veins”. All this must ring hollow from a leader for whom power comes before his party. Mr Apang’s move to rejoin the Congress is clearly aimed at the elections due in the state in October. The fact that the Congress heads the ruling United Progressive Alliance at the Centre improves the party’s prospects at the polls. Opportunistic as his move obviously is, the BJP has little justification for calling it so. For the BJP had welcomed Mr Apang when he merged his erstwhile party, the Arunachal Congress, with it only to upstage a Congress government led by Mr Mukut Mithi.

However, the danger in such blatant political opportunism is easily overlooked. It seeks to legitimize a cult of ruthless realpolitik that leads to greater dangers. This could be particularly dangerous for a north-eastern state on the India-China border. With such politicians in charge, it would not be difficult for militant groups to barter the country’s security and strategic interests for money and arms. Mr Mithi had once accused Mr Apang of maintaining links with one faction of the Naga rebels. Now that they are in the same party, they would like to sing a different tune. A greater responsibility lies with the central leadership of the Congress. The party’s national leaders cannot afford to ignore the dangers for the sake of small local gains.