Arunachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Pasang Dorjee Sona on Monday administered the oath of office and secrecy to Chakat Aboh, the newly-elected MLA of Khonsa West constituency at the Dorjee Khandu Auditorium of the Assembly secretariat here.

Chakat, the widow of slain MLA Tirong Aboh, had won the October 21 byelection defeating her rival Azet Homtok by a convincing margin of 1,887 votes.

She and Homtok contested the bypoll as Independent candidates.

However, according to sources, Chakat is most likely to join the BJP.

After the byelection, the BJP continues to rule the state with 41 seats in the 60-member Assembly while the Janata Dal (United) has seven seats and the Congress four.

The National People’s Party (NPP) has four seats while the People’s Party of Arunachal, the only regional party of the state, has one.

At present, there are three Independent legislators now in the Assembly, including Chakat.

The Khonsa West seat fell vacant after its sitting legislator, Tirong Aboh, his 20-year-old son and nine others were gunned down by suspected insurgents in Tirap district on May 21 this year.

Aboh, who had contested this year’s Assembly election as an NPP candidate, was on his way to Khonsa, the district headquarters of Tirap, from Dibrugarh in Assam when suspected Naga militants opened fire on his four-vehicle convoy.

Aboh also retained the seat by defeating his lone rival, Phawang Lowang of the BJP, by 1,055 votes. Following the killings, all major political parties of the state, including the ruling BJP, had declared Chakat as their consensus candidate for the seat.