The Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly election of 2009 took place in October 2009, concurrently with the assembly elections in Maharashtra and

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land a ...

. The elections were held in the state for all 60 Assembly seats on 2009-10-13. The results were declared on 2009-10-22.

Chief Minister A chief minister is an elected or appointed head of government of – in most instances – a sub-national entity, for instance an administrative subdivision or federal constituent entity. Examples include a state (and sometimes a union terri ...

Dorjee Khandu's

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...

party came back to power in the state with an increased majority, winning 42 seats in the 60 seat Assembly.

Previous Assembly

In the 2004 Arunachal Pradesh Assembly election, Congress won 34 of the 60 seats and Congress leader

Gegong Apang Gegong Apang is an Indian politician from Arunachal Pradesh. He served as Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh from 18 January 1980 to 19 January 1999 and again from August 2003 to April 2007. Apang is Arunachal Pradesh's longest serving Chief M ...

was elected as the Congress Legislative Party and was sworn in as the Chief Minister. Apang had defected from the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mod ...

just a few weeks before the election. The BJP won win 9 seats. However, in April 2007, 29 Congress legislators formally supported a change of leadership in the state Congress. The dissidents also claimed support from 2 NCP, 1 Arunachal Congress and 11 independent legislators. Apang, Arunachal's longest serving chief minister, was forced to step down on 2007-04-09 when the Congress legislators elected Power Minister Dorjee Khandu as the new Congress Legislative Party leader. Khandu was sworn in as the state's seventh Chief Minister by Nagaland Governor

K. Sankaranarayanan Kateekal Sankaranarayanan (15 October 1932 – 24 April 2022) was the governor of the Indian state of Maharashtra. He had also served as the Governor of Nagaland and Jharkhand. Prior to his appointment as governor, he had served as a minister i ...

on 2007-04-10. In June of the same year, Khandu's Government received further strengthening when 8 out of the 9 BJP MLAs joined Congress, taking the strength of the party to 41.

Background

The tenure of the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly was scheduled to expire on 2009-10-24. So the Election Commission of India announced on 2009-08-31 that the election to the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly would be held in October 2009. Though

Nationalist Congress Party The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) is one of the nine national parties in India. The party generally supports Indian nationalism and Gandhian secularism. It is the largest opposition party in Maharashtra and is also a significant party ...

and All India Trinamool Congress were Congress' allies at the Centre, in Arunachal Pradesh, they fought the election against Congress. The BJP was also in the fray in Arunachal, having formed their 1st Government in the North-East after Apang and his supporters had joined the BJP in August 2003.

Schedule

Results

!colspan=8, , - ! colspan="2" rowspan="2" width="150" , Parties and Coalitions ! colspan="3" , Popular vote ! colspan="3" , Seats , - ! width="70" , Vote ! width="45" , % ! width ="50", +/- ! Contested ! Won !+/- , - , style="background-color: " , ,

, 2,89,501 , 50.38 , , 60 , 42 , , - , style="background-color: ", ,

, 1,11,098 , 19.33 , , 36 , 5 , , - , style="background-color: ", , All India Trinamool Congress , 86,406 , 15.04 , , 26 , 5 , , - , style="background-color: ", ,

People's Party of Arunachal Peoples Party of Arunachal, a regional political party in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. It was founded in September 1977 by Bakin Pertin, Oken Lego and L. Wanglat as president, Vice President and General Secretary of the party. Tomo ...

, 41,780 , 7.27 , , 11 , 4 , , - , style="background-color:" , ,

, 29,929 , 5.21 , , 18 , 3 , , - , style="background-color: ", ,

Janata Dal (United) Janata Dal (United) ("People’s Party (United)”) abbreviated as JD(U) is an Indian political party with political presence mainly in eastern and north-eastern India. JD(U) is recognised as a state party in the states of Bihar , Arunachal Pr ...

, 3,584 , 0.62 , , 3 , 0 , , - , style="background-color:grey", , Independents , 12,364 , 2.15 , , 3 , 1 , , - , colspan="8" style="background-color:#E9E9E9", , - style="font-weight:bold;" , align="left" colspan="2", Total , 5,74,662 , 100.00 , style="background-color:#E9E9E9", , 60 , 100.00 , ±0 Source:

By constituency

Government Formation

The Congress party won 42 of the 60 seats in the Assembly, including 3

uncontested John_Carpenter_was_disqualified,_prompting_his_teammates_John_Taylor_(athlete).html" ;"title="John_Carpenter_(athlete).html" "title="Athletics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metres">men's 400 metres running in a walkover. Americ ...

seats - Dorjee Khandu from Mukto,

Tsewang Dhondup Tsewang Dhondup (born 1977) is politician from Tawang in the Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh. He belongs to Indian National Congress Party and is a member of Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly The Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assem ...

from Tawang and

Jambey Tashi Jambey Tashi ( – 2 November 2022) was an Indian politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Arunachal Pradesh, serving as the MLA of 1-Lumla constituency. He was also a Member of National Minority Morcha, BJP. Tashi had previously been a memb ...

from

Lumla Lumla is a town and the headquarters of an eponymous circle in the Tawang district in Arunachal Pradesh, India. Lumla is at the southwestern corner of the Tawang district close to its border with Bhutan. Lumla is also the headquarters of a subd ...

. Seasoned Congressman, seven times MLA and former chief minister,

, and his son Omak Apang both lost the elections. While Gegong lost to

, his son was defeated by

candidate. Without the competition from Gegong, Dorjee Khandu was smoothly elected as the Congress Legislative Party leader on 2009-10-24. Khandu was sworn in for his 2nd term as the Chief Minister by

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

J.J. Singh at the Darbar Hall of the

Itanagar Itanagar () is the capital and largest town of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The seat of Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, the seat of government of Arunachal Pradesh, and the seat of Gauhati High Court permanent bench at Naharla ...

Raj Bhawan on 2009-10-25.

References

{{Arunachal Pradesh elections State Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh 2000s in Arunachal Pradesh 2009 State Assembly elections in India