SDF in poll mode, SKM ups ante

PS Golay

RAJEEV RAVIDAS,TT, Aug 01, 2018, Gangtok: The Sikkim Democratic Party on Tuesday officially sounded the bugle for next year's Assembly elections even as its rival Sikkim Krantikari Moraha accused the ruling party of stealing its programme after doing precious little in the nearly 25 years of being in power.

The central executive committee of the SDF met here and decided to mobilise its cadres and get them on election mode.

"Our president (chief minister Pawan Chamling) issued a clear directive to our cadres to begin election campaigning from today (Tuesday). As a first step, the party has decided to intensify its door-to-door campaigning, and prepare a detailed report on the grievances of the public within a month," said Bhim Dahal, the SDF spokesman.

The chief minister, he said, also instructed party leaders to allot all road construction works to the local people of the area where the work is being executed.

The government has taken a decision to construct 1,100km of new roads in different parts of the state this fiscal following public demand during Chamling's recent 32-constituency mass-contact programme.

Dahal said the chief minister's legal adviser K. T. Gyaltsen had given a detailed briefing on why SKM president P. S. Golay would not be eligible to contest any election for six years from the day of his release, and the party workers would be asked to spread this message to all nook and cranny of the state.

Golay is due to be released from jail on August 10 after serving a year's term following his conviction in a corruption case. The SDF and the SKM have been at odds on the electoral prospect of Golay with the ruling party asserting that he would not be able to contest any election for six years from the day of his release as per law.

The SKM is equally insistent that he will not only be eligible to contest the coming Assembly elections due by the middle of next year but he will also be its chief ministerial candidate.

The SKM had won 10 out of the 32 seats in the last elections in 2014 and the SDF 22. However, seven SKM legislators later defected to the ruling party. Following Golay's disqualification from the Assembly in the wake of his conviction, the strength of the SKM in the House has come down to two.

Earlier in the day, SKM spokesman Jacob Khaling accused the SDF government of stealing the party's programmes and implementing them now after doing nothing in the last four years and in the previous four terms.

"We will for now mention only 10 programmes that were featured in our election manifesto of 2014 which Chamling has brazenly stolen and implementing them now. We are happy that they are being implemented, but Chamling should have had the courtesy to acknowledge our party and president," he said.

Reading from a copy of the party's 2014 manifesto, Khaling listed programmes, including regularisation of work of muster roll and ad hoc workers and 90 per cent reservation of jobs for locals in private companies, among others, and said they were all stolen by Chamling because he did not have any "vision or programme" of his own.