Altogether 549 Arunachal Pradesh panchayat leaders, mostly from the Congress, joined the BJP in the presence of its state unit president Tapir Gao, chief minister Pema Khandu, Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju and MLAs at Seppa in East Kameng district on Thursday.

Welcoming the entrants, Rijiju said, 'Please avoid the tags Old BJP, New BJP. Now we are all one family.'

Picture and text by Pranab Kumar Das