CONCOCTED and motivated, Mithi says but the political lobbies are abuzz with reports that he had intended to join the BJP to save his government. Then what was the stumbling block? It was none other than L K Advani, the deputy prime minister says, BJP national council member R.K Khirmey. According to him, Mithi wanted to “merge” his party with the BJP earlier but it was “prevented” by Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani. He says toppling of Mukut Mithi regime in Arunachal Pradesh was a “pre-meditated” step to install Gegong Apang government. Mithi is not pleased. He is in fact irked.

He described the statement of Khirmey as ‘concocted and politically motivated with ulterior motive to mislead the people and damage the reputation of an individual’.

Khirmey, told reporters at Shillong that Mithi wanted to “merge” his party with the BJP earlier but it was “prevented” by Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani. “It was neither a pre-meditated plan nor a move to saffronise the entire North-Eastern region,” said Khirmey who is also a former MP. Denying the allegation, Mr. Mithi in a letter to Khirmery, said, ‘Though I had called on union Home Minister now Deputy Prime Minister on several occasions most of the time accompanied by the then State governor Arvind Dave, the issue of merger of Congress (I) with BJP had never cropped up in those meetings’. Khirmey also said in Shillong that BJP never forced any minister of the Mithi cabinet to quit the government and join Apang. “We did not force them. They took the decision on their own,” Khirmey said.

‘I demand a public apology and withdrawal of such defamatory statement made by you or else I would be compelled to seek legal redrassal’, the Mithi letter told the BJP functionary.

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