Dorjee Khandu and (below) Nabam Tuki

Itanagar, Sept. 18: With elections knocking on the door, a race is on within the ruling Congress in Arunachal Pradesh over the chief minister’s post, with incumbent Dorjee Khandu and PCC president Nabam Tuki reportedly trying to outdo each other.

Sources said the Congress high command had instructed the Congress Legislature Party leader and chief minister Dorjee Khandu and PWD minister Nabam Tuki to sort out their differences immediately and not hamper the prospects of the party in the state.

They said a vicious power struggle had started within the Congress over chief ministership, leading to the rift.

The high command is yet to release the names of candidates for the October 13 Assembly elections because of these squabbles.

Dorjee Khandu reportedly dropped all the ex-MLAs who owed allegiance to Tuki.

Sitting legislators Nani Ribia, Thajam Abo, D.K. Khrimey, Daklo Nidak, Nyato Rigia and Wangnia Pongte were denied tickets this time, apparently to prevent the tilt of power towards Tuki, a source said.

Khandu, however, downplayed such a possibility, saying the MLAs were dropped after verifying intelligence reports. “The AICC blacklisted 17 Congressmen and all the dropped MLAs were axed after verifying intelligence reports as we perceived a security threat from a few of them. The others were shown the door for anti-party activities,” Khandu said today.

On the internal bickering in the Congress, Tuki said, “The Congress is a big party and if there is bickering and groupism we know how to tackle it. The AICC is handling the matter of issuing the tickets. It is immaterial whether we are happy with issuance of tickets or not, we will have to obey the high command’s instruction.”

The Arunachal NCP alleged that frustration had crept into the Congress and it had employed “hooligans” to burn down two NCP supporters’ vehicles at Naharlagun last night.

The Congress, however, denied this.

The NCP today released a list of 13 candidates. It had released 17 names last week.

The national general secretary of NCP, Jimmy George, today said, “The Congress hooligans out of fear of the growing strength of the NCP have started intimidating the NCP cadres. The incident of burning of two vehicles of two party workers at Naharlagun last evening is ample proof of that.”