Demands for Gorkhaland and a three-cornered fight in unpredicatable Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat
Darjeeling is as unpredictable as the hill weather as it is privy to a unique political culture with multiple hill-based political parties which shift their support between the Trinamool and BJP. The demand for statehood for Gorkhaland and the predicament faced by teagarden workers, especially regarding minimum wages, remain the main issues in Darjeeling as the constituency goes to polls on April 26 in the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls.
Considered a stronghold of the BJP, Raju Bista, originally from Manipur, is the BJP candidate contesting for a second time. This time, there is a three-cornered fight –– Trinamool candidate Gopal Lama, a former bureaucrat and son of the soil is pitted against Congress’s Munish Tamang and BJP's Bista.
Lama had served as the Darjeeling additional district magistrate and then as an OSD (Officer on Special Duty) in GTA until 2017.
Darjeeling is the only seat in Bengal which has been won thrice consecutively by the BJP from 2009-2019. In 2009, it was won by Jaswant Singh when BJP hardly had any presence in Bengal. In 2014, SS Ahluwalia won the seat and then Raju Bista in 2019. In 2014, BJP had won two seats in the state –– Darjeeling and Asansol by Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo respectively.
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