BJP victory puts rivals to test in hills, plains

BIRESWAR BANERJEE &AVIJIT SINHA, TT, 25 May 2019, Siliguri: The BJP's thumping win in the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat for the third time in a row has come as a fresh poser for many parties in the plains and the hills.

Raju Bista, the BJP candidate of Darjeeling, has also set a new record this time. He has won with a margin of 4,13,443 votes, the highest among all the 42 Lok Sabha seats of Bengal.

"The resounding victory of our party in this seat has naturally left our political rivals with puckered eyebrows. We want to go ahead with the momentum and will put all efforts to consolidate our support base," said Abhijit Roy Choudhury, the BJP president of Siliguri (organisational) district.

The win has also raised questions on the Left's clout in Siliguri sub-division, particularly because the Lok Sabha polls have been held less than a year ahead of the rural and civic polls.

This is the sole district in north Bengal and probably in the entire state where the Left are in power at a civic body (Siliguri Municipal Corporation) and at a rural body (Silig- uri Mahakuma Parishad). "The parliamentary elec- tion was an acid test for the Left and it has miserably failed. Some leaders are coming up with the excuse that circumstances in local polls are different but their vote share is an indicator that they will have to toil hard to retain these local bodies in due course," said an observer.

He also pointed that the Left's votes have waned across the foothills and that after BJP Trinamul has a steady vote share in the sub-division.

In Siliguri Assembly segment that is spread over 33 municipal wards of the city, The headquarters of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation. File picture CPM has managed to get only 13,901 votes, while BJP got 1,05148 votes and Trinamul 39,662 votes.

As of now, there are 22 Left councillors in the SMC, 18 councillors of Trinamul, four councillors of Congress and two of BJP.

In the SMP, the Left has four seats while Trinamul has three. In the lower tier, both the Left and Trinamul have majority in two panchayat samitis each.

"Also, Trinamul has majority in 12 of 22 panchayats in the sub-division. But the Lok Sabha poll results show a different figure. In two other Assembly segments of the sub-division (Matigara-Naxalbari and Phansidewa), which comprise the SMP area, BJP has secured lead," said a political analyst. In the hills, the BJP's win has perplexed leaders of the Binay Tamang lobby of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and Trinamul in the hills.

This is because the election of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) is due since last year. Also, the panchayat elections were not held in the hills since 2000 and there is a demand to have the rural polls.

"Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and the by-poll in Darjeeling Assembly seat, Binay Tamang had hinted that both the GTA polls and panchayat election would be conducted this year. But now that BJP has come up with clean sweep in both the Lok sabha and the Assembly seats, it will be a tough contest for the Tamang lobby and Trinamul in hills," said an observer.

The BJP and its allies like the GNLF have already started raising questions over the continuation of the GTA's board of administrators. "The Board of Administrators should be immediately scrapped as those running it do not have peoples' mandate in favour, unlike us," said a BJP leader.

Additional reporting by our Alipurduar correspondent.