Darjeeling is voting today, and Gorkhaland is still a problem
The second round of West Bengal’s Lok Sabha election is scheduled to take place tomorrow, and it will include three seats from north Bengal: Darjeeling, Raiganj, and Balurghat. The BJP won all of these seats in 2019.
The BJP has nominated Kartick Pal from Raiganj in place of former Union Minister Debasree Roy, but has granted tickets to the current Members of Parliament in Darjeeling and Balurghat. State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar faces off against Trinamool Congress politician Biplab Mitra, a minister from West Bengal, at Balurghat.
In Darjeeling, where there will be a triangular struggle between the Congress, Delhi University Professor Munish Tamang, and the TMC, former bureaucrat Gopal Lama, sitting BJP MP Raju Bista is running for re-election.
In opposition to Bista’s candidacy, BJP MLA from Kurseong, Bishnu Pada Sharma has also entered the race as an Independent. Sharma characterized Bista as a “outsider.”
Since2009, Darjeeling has been choosing BJP MPs. Shortly after the hills were rocked by yet another round of the Gorkhaland movement, Bista won by more than 4 lakh votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. However, the BJP’s platform for this year makes no mention of Gorkhaland.
During election rallies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah said that they were getting close to resolving the Gorkhaland demand within constitutional bounds. The political rivals of the BJP have disregarded the guarantees and charged the party of manipulating the emotions of the Gorkha community.
One important Balurghat polling tenet is connectivity. Sukanta Majumdar, the current BJP MP, has made a strong case for the constituency’s railway network to be improved. The prime minister of north Bengal placed the cornerstones of several rail and road projects in March, totaling more than Rs 4,500 crore.
The BJP and the Congress have firmly embraced the long-standing demand for an AIIMS in Raiganj. The TMC administration moved AIIMS to south Bengal because there was not enough land in Raiganj.
Three defectors will compete in a triangle for the constituency. Ali Imran Ramz, the Congress candidate, Kartick Pal of the BJP, and Krishna Kalyani of the Trinamool Party were formerly members of parties different from the ones they now represent.
After switching to the Trinamool, Kalyani won the Raiganj Assembly seat in 2021 while running on the BJP ticket. While Ramz was previously elected to the Assembly from Chakulia on the All India Forward Bloc platform, Kartick Pal was a member of the Congress.
Debasree Roy departed
The BJP won the north Bengal parliamentary seats of Darjeeling, Raiganj, and Balurghat in 2019. The party has offered the current Darjeeling and Balurghat MPs a ticket.
Former Union minister Debasree Roy was withdrawn, and Raiganj resident Kartick Pal was nominated instead.
