Arunachal endures challenging 2025

Arunachal weathers turbulent 2025 amid diplomatic row, protests, natural disasters

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Arunachal Pradesh faced a challenging year in 2025, which saw a diplomatic row over the harassment of an Arunachalee woman at Shanghai airport, protests against a power project and natural disasters affecting over 16,000 people.

The year also witnessed the NDA's dominance in the political sphere with the BJP winning a majority of zilla parishad and gram panchayat constituencies and emerging victorious in civic elections.

The BJP bagged 170 out of 245 zilla parishad member (ZPM) seats, including 59 uncontested ones, establishing its clear dominance at the district level. The party won 14 of the 20 wards in the Itanagar Municipal Corporation elections, while it got two wards, and its partner Peoples' Party of Arunachal (PPA) secured five in the Pasighat Municipal Council. The opposition Congress failed to open its account in both civic bodies.

The year's most-talkedabout episode was the ordeal of Pema Wangjom Thongdok, an Arunachal Pradesh native residing in the UK, who was allegedly detained for nearly 18 hours at Shanghai airport in November while transiting from London to Japan.