Trinamul Congress's hill face Gopal Lama starts campaign from Terai region with 'development' talks

 Trinamul has never won Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat, which comprises Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong Assembly segments in hills and Siliguri, Matigari-Naxalbari, Phashidewa and Chopra Assembly segments in plains

Gopal Lama (folded hands, standing) addresses Trinamul supporters in Siliguri on Friday: Picture by Passang Yolmo

Bireswar Banerjee, TT, Siliguri, 17.03.24 : Gopal Lama, the Darjeeling Trinamul Congress candidate from its hill ally, the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), kick-started his campaign from the Terai region of the constituency with “development” on his lips.

Trinamul has never won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat, which comprises Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong Assembly segments in the hills and Siliguri, Matigari-Naxalbari, Phashidewa and Chopra Assembly segments in the plains.

Darjeeling goes to polls on April 26.

The party lost the seat to the BJP for three consecutive terms since 2009.

Lama started his poll campaign from the plains on Friday.

On Friday evening, Lama attended meetings in Siliguri and Naxalbari, a prominent hamlet of the tribal belt of the Terai region.

On Saturday, Lama, also a former civil service officer, held a meeting with the representatives of a number of Nepali-speaking organisations at Pintail village.

“The chief minister Mamata Banerjee has given me a huge responsibility this time to win the Darjeeling seat. We have started working with a collective effort from the plains,” Lama said.

“A number of development projects in areas like education, health and other related issues are in progress across the hills and plains. We want to reach out to the people of both the hills and plains to apprise them about the different ongoing social security schemes of the state government,” said Lama.

A source in Trinamul said that a major area of the plains comes under Phansidewa and Matigara-Naxalbari Assembly constituencies. These come under the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad (SMP).

The BJP won both the Assembly seats in 2021. However, Trinamul won the 2023 rural polls in these seats.

“We are now trying to focus on these (plains) areas by highlighting several development projects of the state to secure a lead in the upcoming polls. We failed to do so in the last Lok Sabha election but want to reverse the situation this time,” a senior Trinamul leader said.

In 2019, Raju Bista of the BJP won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat with a margin of 4.13 lakh votes by defeating Amar Singh Rai of Trinamul.

Bista garnered 59 percent of the total votes. Rai’s vote share was only 26 per cent.

However, Lama is from Anit Thapa’s BGPM, which is currently a strong force in the hills. Thapa’s party has swept the recent panchayat and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) polls.

“Trinamul is hoping that the BGPM’s electoral success and administrative grip on the hills through the GTA and rural bodies would help Lama this time,” said a source.

Cooch Behar

Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, the Trinamul candidate from the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat, also started his poll campaign across different areas of Sitai Assembly seat on Saturday. He was accompanied by Rabindranath Ghosh, a senior Trinamul Cooch Behar leader.