Tanga Byaling, who currently holds the working president role at the Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee and has previously served in a ministerial capacity, disputed on Thursday the assertion from BJP leaders that the Congress party had transformed the proposed Siang Upper Multipurpose Project into a matter of political contention.

At a gathering held at Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan in Itanagar, Byaling addressed remarks made by Rajya Sabha MP Tai Tagak and cabinet minister Nyato Dukam, stating that the Congress party was fulfilling its function as the Opposition by bringing forward the concerns of indigenous communities in Siang and Upper Siang districts — communities whose land holdings, livelihoods, and cultural identity stood to be affected by the planned project.

In a complaint he lodged, Byaling identified four areas he said had been left without adequate attention by the state government: public consent, rehabilitation, environmental safety, and national security.

Drawing on the dam's background, Byaling noted that communities standing to be displaced had voiced their opposition to the proposed reservoir project when Nabam Tuki held the position of chief minister. Those concerns, per his account, were relayed by the state administration of the time to the national government, which also advocated for smaller run-of-the-river hydropower projects as a way of keeping land flooding and community displacement to a minimum.

Byaling put a direct question to the state government, asking why it had signed the memorandum of understanding before completing thorough social and environmental impact assessments and holding consultations with the communities that stood to be affected. Among the questions he raised were the boundaries of the area earmarked for submersion, an estimate of how many villages and households stood to be displaced, and what provisions the authorities had put in place for rehabilitation, resettlement, and the restoration of livelihoods.

Byaling argued that financial redress falls short of what roughly 27 villages stand to lose — not only land tied to ancestral heritage, but also the customary institutions and deep-rooted connections to the river that money cannot restore.

Byaling also raised doubts about a Rs 350 crore package for special development and livelihood support tied to the project. He called for the creation of an independent oversight body to trace where the money went, who received it, and through what pathways it moved, arguing that the funds had been used to win over communities and secure individual memoranda of understanding in favour of the pre-feasibility report. No independent confirmation of those claims was obtainable.

At an October 13 gathering where Chief Minister Pema Khandu met with representatives from various organisations and local youth bodies, Byaling noted that calls had reportedly been put forward for paramilitary personnel to be pulled out of the affected areas, along with a request that cases lodged against those who had protested the SUMP be dropped. He also called for the government to examine cases involving those detained over non-violent protest activity and to establish conditions under which open dialogue could take place.

Byaling raised doubts about whether national security formed a legitimate basis for the project. Among the materials he pursued were technical and hydrological assessments, which he said were relevant to examining how a proposed reservoir — one with a reported storage capacity of 11,500 million cubic metres — could respond to the strategic considerations raised by a hydropower scheme China has put forward on the Yarlung Tsangpo. Questions also arose about whether the project's planned output had undergone a threefold expansion, jumping from an original 3,750 MW figure to a revised total of 11,500 MW.

Among the measures Byaling put forward were thorough safety reviews of dam infrastructure, structured plans for managing disasters, and alert networks designed to give downstream populations in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam advance notice of potential hazards. He also raised questions about advance payments reportedly tied to earlier hydropower memoranda of understanding.

Byaling pushed back on Dukam's reported position about the state's reliance on central funding, arguing that transfers from the Centre could not serve as grounds for placing outsized burdens on indigenous communities. Alongside an appeal for calm among residents, he urged the government to hold transparent consultations with landowners and the communities most directly affected by the project before any final decisions are reached.