2019: The Year In Favour Of BJP In Northeast

The year 2019 was action packed, turbulent and exciting for the entire North East region. There was the general election, plus the state election in the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, and besides that there were new initiatives in the states. The issue of the updated National Registrar of Citizens and the proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill also shook the region. We look at some of the most important events that each of the states experienced this year. Northeast Today reports

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

Arunachal Pradesh was buzzing with activities from the first day of the year, as both state and national elections were around the corner. Though the state has only two Lok Sabha seats, the state was also going for the state assembly election. The BJP was banking on the young, dynamic and highly popular Chief Minister of the state, Pema Khandu to deliver for the BJP.

BJP won a landslide victory in the state assembly election, winning 41 of the 60 assembly seats and Khandu was sworn in as the chief minister of the state for a second time. BJP also managed to win both the Lok Sabha seats in the state–Kiren Rijiju (won the –Arunachal West constituency), and Tapir Gao (won the- Arunachal east constituency).

Rijiju was appointed as the Minister for sports and youth welfare (Independent charge).

Right after taking charge as the chief minister for the second time, Khandu took steps for the welfare and development of the state.

As a very people friendly move, the chief minister scrapped 22 of the hydropower projects in the state and sending a very strong message to the developers of the hydropower projects, the chief minister said that these hydropower project developers have lost confidence of the people, and that department reviews are being conducted in regular intervals and action is being taken against those power developers found non-performing.

This was widely appreciated by people across the region.

Continuing his people-friendly approach, Khandu also inaugurated the North East region’s first community-managed mini-hydro electric project at Dikshi village in West Kameng district, and the 24 kW Dikshi Hydroelectric Project on the Phudungto river is expected to produce 112.40-gigawatt hours of electricity for meeting the power needs of East and West Kameng districts besides major defense establishments.