Former Arunachal CM Apang to float new party

Kolkata, January 18

Former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, who quit the BJP after a four-year association earlier this week, on Friday said he will form a new political party.

Asserting that he will not join any other party, Apang said, “I will float a new party.”

The 69-year-old leader arrived here to attend Saturday’s mega opposition rally at the invitation of West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee.

He praised Banerjee as a ‘great leader’ and expressed support for her initiative to defeat the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Apang has been the chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh for 22 years in two stints - from January 1980 to January 1999 and again from August 2003 to April 2007.

Apang resigned from the saffron party in a letter sent to party president Amit Shah on Tuesday. He had left the Congress and joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 general election. PTI