Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat: No one's sure where the wind blows

TNN | Apr 17, 2014, DARJEELING: When this tiny segment of the eastern Himalayas and the plains below that form the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat go to polls on Thursday, it will be the first time that the near total grip of a 'hill party' (the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha now and the GNLF earlier) is being boldly challenged by a plains-based party (the Trinamool Congress). And this is what could lead to, again for the first time in the hills, a polling marked by disturbances as compared to the 'incident-free' polls of the past. 

The Morcha hasn't taken this challenge too kindly and, as the Trinamool's hills' spokesperson Binny Sharma told TOI, "will definitely try to disrupt free and fair polling". The Morcha-BJP combine fears the same in the plains and had asked the EC Observer to declare all polling stations in the plains "super-sensitive", said Morcha central committee member DK Pradhan. He told TOI that he was afraid of an active collusion between the "partisan" district administrative machinery and the Trinamool to rig the polls. 

The district administration says it has taken all "necessary measures" to ensure free and fair polls. Altogether, 28 companies of CAPF have been deployed in six of the seven Assembly constituencies under the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat. Four CAPF companies have been deployed in the Chopra Assembly seat in Uttar Dinajpur district. This is in addition to nine CAPF companies that are already present in the hills. A total of 2,500 state armed police personnel, as well as the regular police force in the entire district, have also been pressed into service to ensure peaceful polling, said Darjeeling police chief Akhilesh Chaturvedi. 

Of 1,829 polling booths in this LS seat, 1,153 booths in 951 polling stations fall under the Darjeeling district police's jurisdiction. Of them, 302 have been declared as 'hyper critical', 403 as 'critical' and the remaining 246 as 'normal'. Of the 480 polling booths under the jurisdiction of the Siliguri Police Commissionerate, 129 are 'hyper critical', 143 'critical' and the remaining 208 are normal. 

The unease of the Morcha-BJP and the Trinamool-GNLF combines about their respective weaknesses finds reflection in their candidates' itineraries for Thursday. While Ahluwalia will extensively tour all polling stations in the plains where the combine's machinery is weak, Baichung Bhutia will confine himself to the hills where the Trinamool-GNLF combine suffers from organizational drawbacks. 

The Morcha-BJP combine has nominated polling agents in all polling stations except for a few in the Muslim-dominated Chopra Assembly seat. The reverse is the case with the Trinamool-GNLF combine. They have polling agents ready for all polling stations in the hills. 

"This is the first time in 28 years that any party other than the one ruling in the hills will post its agents in all the polling stations in the hills," he said. 

"Morcha activists have already started threatening our polling agents and we have complained to the district administration and the EC Observer. We apprehend disturbances in many Morcha strongholds in the three hills subdivisions," Sharma said. 

The Morcha-BJP combine hurls the similar accusations against the Trinamool in the four Assembly constituencies (Siliguri, Matigara-Naxalbari, Phansidewa and Chopra) in the plains. But it fears that the "highly-politicized and partisan administrative and police machinery" (Morcha's Pradhan calls the state machinery the "most biased" he has seen in his 40-year-long political career) could favour the Trinamool. 

This is also the first election that is so critical to the political survival of the hill strongman. Over the past three decades, GNLF supremo Subhas Ghising - and Morcha's Bimal Gurung after him - have never been so worried about the outcome of any election in this district. Their hegemony on the hills has ensured certain victory for their candidates. There's a clear challenge to this now, not only from the Trinamool but also, substantially, from an Independent candidate-Mahendra P Lama. No Independent candidate has, in the electoral history of Darjeeling, posed even a minor challenge to a GNLF or Morcha-backed candidate. 

Clashes between Morcha and GNLF supporters in some pockets in the hills is a distinct possibility, fear many. Bigger clashes are feared after the results are declared on May 16. In case Ahluwalia wins, an emboldened and resurgent Morcha would feel tempted to take on the GNLF. And if Baichung Bhutia makes it to Parliament, a vengeful Morcha would take its ire out on the GNLF. Either way, skirmishes and violence seems to be on the cards.