Development Boards in Hills back TMC in Darj civic elections

Courtesy : FB- SHanta chhetri

REZA PRADHAN, SNS, DARJEELING, 17 FEBRUARY 2022: Development Boards of 12 Hill communities today pledged their support to the Trinamool Congress in the upcoming Darjeeling Municipality elections.

The support came after senior TMC leader Gautam Deb today held a meeting with chairpersons of the boards that the state government has formed for the communities' development.

Though the Boards assured their support to the 10 TMC candidates that the party has fielded for the 27-February elections, they did not say anything concrete about what they would for the other wards where the TMC has not fielded candidates.

While the TMC fielded candidates in 10 wards, the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha led by Bimal Gurung has fielded candidates in 22 wards, in what looks like a "silent" seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties. Both the parties have not officially talked about any such alliance.

"We held a meeting with the chairmen and vice-chairmen of 12 of the 16 Development Boards and requested them to support our 10 candidates in the Municipality elections. They have given their assurances for their support. We will also ask the remaining Development Boards, which did not attend the meeting today, for their support," Mr Deb said after the meeting.

According to Mr Deb, they fielded candidates only in 10 wards so they could concentrate on them better and win.

Even though there looks like an understanding between the Morcha and the TMC for the 32 wards here, there is an overlapping of candidates in two wards--ward 5 and 32- - in which both of them have fielded candidates. However, in wards 1 and 15, both the parties have not given any candidate. Speaking on their support to the TMC candidates, Tamang Board chairman Sanjay Moktan said, "Being leaders of our different communities, we will request our community to vote for TMC candidates as the party has helped us in the uplift of our communities through these Development Boards."

Asked if they would be supporting the Morcha or any other candidate where the TMC has not fielded any candidate, he said, "Our mandate is only that we will support the 10 TMC candidates and we will only do that, and we have nothing to say about any other party. We will support only those candidates who hold the TMC symbol."