New Delhi: Weeks before the dates for the Lok Sabha and the Arunachal Pradesh assembly polls are to be announced, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has upped its efforts at securing defections from opposition parties in the Northeast.On February 25, two Congress leaders and one senior leader of the National People’s Party (NPP) in poll-bound Arunachal Pradesh left their respective parties to join BJP’s state unit.While the NPP leader, Mutchu Mithi, is a two time MLA from Arunachal’s Roing constituency, Congress leader Ninong Ering was one of the two Lok Sabha members from the northeastern state till 2019 and also a former minister of state in the United Progressive Alliance II government. Interestingly, these defections occurred on a day when top BJP leader Amit Shah told party workers in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal that the BJP under Narendra Modi had ended the “politics of dynasty”. Both Mithi and Ering are second generation politicians in the Arunachal. While Mithi’s father was Arunachal Pradesh chief minister and top Congress leader Mukut Mithi, Ering’s father, Daying Ering, was a former Congress MP and is considered one of the tallest leaders of the state Congress. Mutchu Mithi has moved to the BJP from NPP. In spite of being a regional ally of the BJP and a part of the National Democratic Alliance, the NPP has so far stayed away from forging a pre-poll alliance with the party in the assembly polls, either in its stronghold Meghalaya, or in Manipur and Nagaland. More than the Lok Sabha polls, these defections are being looked at by political observers in Arunachal as an effort by the Pema Khandu-led BJP to return to power in the state. While Mithi may be able to add the Roing seat to the BJP, Ering, who represented Pasighat in the state assembly several times before winning the LS polls between 2009 and 2019, would be able to stall the Congress from pocketing that seat in the coming polls. Ering, till yesterday, was the sitting Congress MLA from Pasighat. The other Congress sitting MLA who defected to the BJP on February 25 was Wanglin Lowangdong. A graduate from Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, Wanglin represented Congress in the outgoing assembly from Bordua Bogapani.The state Congress called these defections the “politics of aayaram gayaram (people who come and go from parties)” and urged the voters to reject such “seasonal and migratory political leaders”. AssamSimultaneously, similar movement of senior Congress leaders to the BJP in neighbouring Assam can also be seen. On February 25, Assam state Congress working president Rana Goswami resigned from the party. The buzz is that Goswami, a two-time MLA from the Jorhat constituency, will soon join BJP, now led by his former Congress colleague Himanta Biswa Sarma. In the 2016 and 2021 assembly elections, Goswami had lost to BJP’s Hitendra Nath Goswami.Additionally, on February 14, two Congress MLAs – Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha and Basanta Das – told local reporters that they would support the Sarma government on development issues without leaving the party. The state unit, on February 23, issued them a ‘show cause’ notice seeking an explanation for supporting the government of another party, particularly after they failed to be present during the voting on a resolution in the assembly brought by Raijor Dal leader Akhil Gogoi among others. The Sarma government won narrowly, by only nine votes.Soon after, the leader of the Opposition Debabrat Saikia moved a disqualification petition with the assembly Speaker, seeking their expulsion from the house under the Tenth Schedule of the constitution. While Das has voluntarily resigned from the party, Purkayastha has dared the party leadership to throw him out of it. Das represents the Mangaldoi assembly constituency and Purkayastha is the Congress’s Karimganj North MLA. Unlike the assembly seats, both Mangaldoi and Karimganj Lok Sabha constituencies are with the BJP.