The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) is set to face an acid test as 13 seats in North Bengal including the crucial Darjeeling constituency will go to polls in the fifth phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections on Saturday. It will seek to retain ground lost to the BJP in the last Lok Sabha elections. The seats are spread across the districts of Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and Kalimpong. A total of 45 seats will go to the polls in the fifth phase of voting.
The Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong Assembly seats will be a challenge for the TMC and its ally Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) — which is currently divided between the two factions led by GJM supremo Bimal Gurung and his estranged deputy Binay Tamang. Even as both factions pledged support for the TMC, they have separately fielded candidates for the three seats who will be contesting as independents.
Sources in the GJM and TMC said that a section of leaders in both parties are worried that this may lead to a division of votes, which may ultimately benefit the BJP.
However, both Gurung and Tamang made it clear that the Gorkhaland issue is not going to be the key poll plank for them in the Assembly elections. Tamang said that development and improved governance of the hills will be the key poll issues for them.
Even as he clarified that the Gorkhaland issue will always be relevant, Gurung said “ the pandemic has badly hit the tea and tourism industry in the hills and the people are eager for development.”
The BJP on the other hand pitched a “permanent political solution” for the Darjeeling Hills. BJP sources said that the party “has not said anything about the Gorkhaland statehood issue but is more focused on development and employment generation.”
The GJM won all three Darjeeling district seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
As for the seven seats in Jalpaiguri, the fate of senior TMC leader and Tourism Minister Indranil Sen will be decided in the Dabgram-Phulbari Assembly seat, where will be up against his former aide Sikha Chattopadhyay, who joined the BJP in 2017.
Despite having a lead in the Rajganj Assembly seat in the last Lok Sabha elections, the TMC is on a sticky wicket this time due to internal discontent over candidate selection. It faces a similar situation in the Dhupguri Assembly seat.
The BJP in the last Lok Sabha elections capitalised on the decline of the Left Front and factionalism within the TMC in the tea garden-dominated Nagrakata and Malbazar constituencies.
However, BJP sources said that the party is not very hopeful of repeating its success in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in the Maynaguri and Jalpaiguri Sadar Assembly seats due to internal discontent over candidate selection.
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