West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | Darjeeling’s familiar faultlines

Kurseong: The unexpected torrential downpour has led to waterlogging right in front of Sudha’s kiosk at Pagla Jhora, the majestic waterfall on the Hill Cart Road that runs alongside the Darjeeling–Siliguri train track. Preparing tea for customers, Sudha sets a saucepan to boil as her husband, Mani, shuffles out with a trenching spade to clear the puddles.

“At least we can buy a gas cylinder with the money that Didi gives us,” she says, referring to Lakshmi Bhandar, the direct cash transfer scheme for women initiated by the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal.

After three consecutive terms in office, the TMC is heavily banking on cash handouts to retain power in West Bengal. So is its only ally in the state: the Anit Thapa-led Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), for which Mamata Banerjee has left three seats in the Darjeeling hills—Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong.

For the TMC, which seeks to project itself as the sole repository of anti-BJP votes and not cede a single seat even to the Congress, the Darjeeling concession is tactical, driven by regional compulsions.

Thapa, who currently heads the semi-autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), has fielded local lawyer and businessman-turned- politician Amar Lama from Kurseong, the alpine town nestled amid some of the biggest tea gardens. 

At Lama’s election office in the central market, campaign agents have arrived to pick up materials. Posters and bills boldly underscore the party’s catchphrase: “Save regional identity.”

That is precisely what “Pahar ko Raja,” or the King of the Hills, as Subhash Ghising was called, set out to do in the 1980s by tapping into the separate statehood sentiment among the Nepali-speaking Gorkha community.

After a violent struggle, the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, a semi-autonomous body mandated to administer the hills, was formed. Ever since, statehood has been the rabbit politicians pull out of the hat every election season, a chimera the people have chased for generations.

In 2007, Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha challenged Ghising’s leadership while reigniting the separate statehood movement. An agreement between the West Bengal government and the Centre led to the creation of the GTA in 2011.

Five years later, in 2017, yet another Gorkhaland agitation flared up in the hills that led to the ascension of Anit Thapa’s faction in GTA. Since then, Thapa, backed by the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government in Kolkata, has sought to consolidate his position.

Thapa’s opponent, Bimal Gurung’s Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), is contesting this election in alliance with the BJP. All its candidates, interestingly, are in the fray on the BJP symbol. GJM youth wing leader Noman Rai is the BJP candidate from Darjeeling. In Kurseong, the party has fielded Sonam Lama, while former Indian hockey captain Bharat Chettri is contesting from Kalimpong.

In the Lok Sabha polls, however, the BJP has consistently performed well in the Darjeeling seat. In 2009, former Union External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh won by a comfortable margin, followed by SS Ahluwalia in 2014. In the last two elections, the local lad Raju Bishta has won on the BJP symbol.

“BGPM is nothing but the TMC’s proxy. I’m willing to contest polls and challenge Mamata Banerjee if she fights from Darjeeling. People have not forgotten what happened in 2017,” Bishta says, referring to the incident when a West Bengal cabinet meeting in Darjeeling flared tensions and triggered violence.

The contest in the Darjeeling hills has been made more interesting with the entry of a third force, the Indian Gorkha Janshakti Front (IGJF), led by Ajay Edwards, owner of Darjeeling’s landmark Glenary’s Bakery. His outfit, formally known as the Humro Party, sprang a surprise by bagging the Darjeeling Municipality in the 2022 local body polls.