Allies gain in hill BJP win...

VIVEK CHHETRI, TT, 10 Jun 2019, Darjeeling: The BJP has won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha and Assembly seats but the victory seems to have fortified its allies, the Bimal Gurung faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and the Gorkha National Liberation Front which had been lying low for long.

Many observers said although it would appear that the BJP gained by getting on board 16 councillors at the Darjeeling municipal corporation, it would actually be the Gurung faction that would be at the advantage in the hill politics.

"They (councillors) might have joined the BJP, but they are undoubtedly still with the Gurung camp. They have probably decided to remain under the BJP's patronage to tide over the present political situation in the hills in which leaders of the Gurung faction have not been able to come out on in the open," said an observer.

Noman Rai, who had led the 16 councillors to seek a notrust motion against the chairperson of the Morcha's Binay Tamang camp, on Sunday justified the decision to join the BJP. "There is already an alliance and to keep it intact and to find a mid-way, we support the BJP," he said.

Rai is the working president of the Gorkha Janmukti Yuwa Morcha (Bimal Gurung). All the 16 councillors said they were aligned with the Gurung camp until the switchover on Saturday. During the Lok Sabha elec- tion campaign, few leaders of the Gurung camp had come out on the street for the first time in two years.

"During the Assembly byelection, it was the GNLF which gained the most. GNLF spokesman Neeraj Zimba contested on a BJP ticket and won the poll," said an observer.

Zimba was clear then that even though he was contesting on the BJP ticket, he would remain with the GNLF.

The observers say the Gurung camp's decision to allow the 16-councillors to join BJP is an attempt to have a stronger say in the alliance.

"The GNLF's leader is a BJP MLA and there is every possibility of the BJP being obliged more to the GNLF now. However, with 16 councillors in the BJP, both the partners can be seen to have an equal say," said the observer.

Last week, some GNLF leaders had come up with statements that suggested that they wanted to take the lead in the present political space of Darjeeling. "Following Saturday's defection, some balance seems to have settled in the alliance. However, it still needs to be seen if the experiment of coalition politics works till the end," said the observer.

Anit Thapa, the general secretary of the Morcha's Tamang camp, however, differed: "The BJP has taken advantage of the differences within the alliance.".