Gorkhaland remains an issue as Darjeeling votes today

Tribune News Service

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, April 25

Three seats in north Bengal, Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat, are set to go to the polls during the second phase of the Lok Sabha election in West Bengal tomorrow. All these seats were won by the BJP in 2019.

While the BJP has given the ticket to the sitting MPs in Darjeeling and Balurghat, it has dropped former Union minister Debasree Roy and nominated Kartick Pal from Raiganj. In Balurghat, state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar is pitted against West Bengal minister and Trinamool Congress leader Biplab Mitra.

Sitting BJP MP Raju Bista is seeking re-election from Darjeeling, which is set to see a triangular contest with the Congress fielding Delhi University Professor Munish Tamang and the TMC giving the ticket to former bureaucrat Gopal Lama.

BJP MLA from Kurseong Bishnu Pada Sharma has also thrown his hat in the ring as an Independent candidate in protest against the candidature of Bista who, Sharma claimed, was an “outsider”.

Darjeeling has been electing BJP MPs since 2009. In the 2019 LS poll, held soon after yet another phase of the Gorkhaland agitation swept the hills, Bista won by over 4 lakh votes. BJP’s manifesto this year, however, is silent on the issue of Gorkhaland.

PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah said during election rallies that they were close to finding a solution to the Gorkhaland demand within the ambit of the Constitution. BJP’s political opponents have dismissed the assurances and accused the BJP of playing with the sentiments of the Gorkha population.

Connectivity is a key poll plank in Balurghat. Sitting BJP MP Sukanta Majumdar has been vocal about the improvement of railway network in the constituency. In March, the PM laid the foundation stones of various projects across rail and road sector worth over Rs 4,500 crore in north Bengal.

At Raiganj, the long-pending demand of an AIIMS has been taken up strongly by the BJP and the Congress. AIIMS was shifted to south Bengal by the TMC government, citing non-availability of land at Raiganj.

The constituency is set for a triangular contest among three defectors. Trinamool’s Krishna Kalyani, BJP’s Kartick Pal and Congress nominee Ali Imran Ramz originally belonged to parties other than those they represent now.

Kalyani won the Raiganj Assembly seat on the BJP ticket in 2021, but later shifted to the Trinamool. Kartick Pal was with the Congress while Ramz was earlier elected to the Assembly from Chakulia on the All India Forward Bloc ticket.

Debasree Roy dropped

• Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat parliamentary seats in north Bengal were won by the BJP in 2019
• The party has given the ticket to the sitting MPs in Darjeeling and Balurghat
• It has dropped former Union minister Debasree Roy and nominated Kartick Pal from Raiganj

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