In a poll season that's fast turning into a Narendra Modi's friends versus Narendra Modi's foes match, a personality like Mamata Banerjee is considered to be a fence-sitter of sorts. West Bengal's chief minister, however, believes that she is one-of-a-kind, lone ranger of sorts, if her many interviews and statements are anything to go by. Consequently, West Bengal, like the Jayalalithaa-led Tamil Nadu, has turned into a state that has the potential to upset the alliance math of the biggies - BJP and the Congress - to such an extent that the final outcome of the polls might end up looking very different to what the parties had anticipated. West Bengal goes into polls on April 17, with just four of its 42 constituencies kicking off the first leg of the Lok Sabha elections in the state. Darjeeling, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri - districts that form the crown of North Bengal - will witness voting on Thursday. Interestingly, the first phase of West Bengal polls witnesses a pitted battle between four constituencies where the ruling party - Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress - has traditionally been on the back-foot. The Darjeeling seat is held by former BJP MP Jaswant Singh. Jalpaiguri has CPM leader Mahendra Kumar Roy as its MP. Alipurduars has Manohar Tirkey of the RSP as its MP and Cooch Behar has Nripendra Nath Roy of the All India Forward Bloc.
Of all the contests, the one at Darjeeling is the most interesting for obvious reasons. The constituency will see a three-way battle between retired footballer Baichung Bhutia, CPM leader Saman Pathak and BJP's national vice-president SS Ahluwalia. However, in the years preceding this, the fight at Darjeeling had mostly been a one-sided battle with BJP's Jaswant Singh always winning hands-down from the seat. However, most recently, in the wake of the Telangana bifurcation, Jaswant Singh was caught in a fairly strange situation. A 'missing complaint' was filed against him by the Gorkha Task Force in Kalimpong, 50 kilometres from Darjeeling. One will remember that it was around the same time that Andhra Pradesh was literally on the boil, thanks to the impending Telangana split.
Telangana, in fact, acted as an epicentre that sparked of tremors of separate statehood demands across the country. Leading the pack was the Gorkhaland movement, centred around Darjeeling, and being violently fought by the GJM (Gorkhaland Janmukti Morcha). In 2009, Jaswant Singh had been voted to power as the area's MP on the back of his assertive declarations of helping Gorkhaland acquire statehood. However, as Darjeeling burnt, Singh went missing in action. Understandably so, since the separation of Telangana was being viewed as a gimmicky, desperate move by the Congress, resisted by its own Andhra MPs to change the poll equation in the region. The party faced scathing criticism for letting a state break up like that for its own benefit. No wonder then that the BJP refused to share any of the blame or criticism from political and civil groups that were opposed to granting multiple statehood demands. The resultant stir in Gorkhaland - an area covering Darjeeling, Dooars in north Bengal and some parts of Jalpaiguri - left one youth activist dead and several injured in clashes with security forces. And Jaswant Singh, who had promised to back Gorkhaland's separate statehood demand, maintained a steely silence on the issue, especially with Mamata Banerjee attacking both the Congress and BJP for fuelling illogical statehood demands. Singh's silence drew members of the GTF to Delhi. In Delhi too, Singh refused to meet them and his representatives apparently told the disgruntled GTF that he was touring his constituency. Evidently, Singh was doing nothing like that, leading the enraged GTF to file the missing complaint. GTF leader Manish Tamang explained to Hindustan Times, "Recently, we had gone to Delhi with the Gorkhaland demand and had tried to meet our MP Jaswant Singh. We were told he was not in Delhi but in Darjeeling. But after returning, we could not locate him in Darjeeling. Hence, we lodged a missing diary.
Now that he is required to speak for Gorkhaland he has gone missing." Singh's misfortunes don't seem to have ended at just that. Sensing that the GJM, which had provided rousing support to him during the 2009 polls, had developed a fair amount of cynicism about his motives, the BJP replaced him with SS Ahluwalia in Darjeeling. While the country was caught up discussing how sidelining Singh was one of Narendra Modi's ways of leaving the old guard out in the cold, the party took the best measure possibly to counter the discontent pooling against Singh in his bastion Darjeeling. Some would say, the BJP's move worked. The GJM has pledged to support the new candidate in Darjeeling and the political outfit still has reasonable clout in the area. Singh consequently quit the party after being denied a ticket and has now decided to walk it alone in Barmer, Rajasthan. Can Bengal's favourite footballer score a maiden goal for Trinamool? There is little doubt about the fact that Mamata Banerjee doesn't mind cracking a cruel whip or two to keep her flock together. Consequently, when her two-year-old government was faced with stiff resistance from Gorkhaland, as an offshoot of the Andhra split in 2013, she dealt it with an iron first. When talks fell through, she deployed paramilitary forces in a restive Darjeeling to snuff out the rebellion. Several GJM leaders were arrested and thrown into jail for rioting. As the agitation started to lose steam in the face of stringent measures taken by the administration the GJM came around and offered to clear up 'misunderstandings' with Banerjee's government. Banerjee, who had so far been inflexible, readily accepted the olive branch extended to her and reiterated her famed 'maa, maati, manush' stance, by saying she in invariably with the people of her state, including Darjeeling. Her state still, mind you. Instead of issuing warnings or suchlike she appealed for peace and promised a bounty of development for the Hills. PTI quotes Banerjee saying: "I am sorry for disruption in the development process in the Darjeeling hills, but my government is committed to expedite it in the interest of people there as well as the entire state." She announced allocations from the state budget for hydel power projects and national highways development in the region. Now, she has dealt a body blow to the opposition in Darjeeling by fielding retired footballer Bhaichung Bhutia from the Darjeeling constituency. Though the footballer hails from Sikkim, Darjeeling and several other parts of north Bengal has a sizable Bhutia population. Where Banerjee has dealt with Gorkhaland like a tough school principal, cold and sympathetic alternately, she has now appealed to the oldest and the deepest conflict of the north eastern population of the country. The demand for Gorkhaland has been mostly built around a plea for equal development for the north eastern Gorkha tribe, which feels left behind in the race for progress. Though there are several conflicts of rights and ascendancy among the various tribes in separate NE states, including these parts of north Bengal, they are all bound by a collective disapproval of the mainstream Indian administration's lack of empathy for them. By fielding a Bhutia, Banerjee played the best gamble she could. Not only is Bhaichung a personality homogeneously applauded and looked up at by the entire state, his being a Bhutia helps deal with the Gorkhas' feeling of disenfranchisement better. With the BJP on wobbly ground courtesy Jaswant Singh's no-show, this might be just a perfect pitch for the TMC to make a Darjeeling debut. Bhutia's humble beginnings in Sikkim, and his success achieved on the ground of Bengal, makes him the perfect dream-vendor for Banerjee in Darjeeling. If Bhutia does manage to strike the us-against-Indian-mainland chord with close to one lakh voters in Darjeeling, the BJP might lose a precious seat in West Bengal.
Indian Gorkhas
BJP’s Jaswant gone, will TMC debut in Darjeeling with Bhaichung?
The curious case of a missing MP
Of all the contests, the one at Darjeeling is the most interesting for obvious reasons. The constituency will see a three-way battle between retired footballer Baichung Bhutia, CPM leader Saman Pathak and BJP's national vice-president SS Ahluwalia. However, in the years preceding this, the fight at Darjeeling had mostly been a one-sided battle with BJP's Jaswant Singh always winning hands-down from the seat. However, most recently, in the wake of the Telangana bifurcation, Jaswant Singh was caught in a fairly strange situation. A 'missing complaint' was filed against him by the Gorkha Task Force in Kalimpong, 50 kilometres from Darjeeling. One will remember that it was around the same time that Andhra Pradesh was literally on the boil, thanks to the impending Telangana split.Telangana, in fact, acted as an epicentre that sparked of tremors of separate statehood demands across the country. Leading the pack was the Gorkhaland movement, centred around Darjeeling, and being violently fought by the GJM (Gorkhaland Janmukti Morcha). In 2009, Jaswant Singh had been voted to power as the area's MP on the back of his assertive declarations of helping Gorkhaland acquire statehood. However, as Darjeeling burnt, Singh went missing in action. Understandably so, since the separation of Telangana was being viewed as a gimmicky, desperate move by the Congress, resisted by its own Andhra MPs to change the poll equation in the region. The party faced scathing criticism for letting a state break up like that for its own benefit. No wonder then that the BJP refused to share any of the blame or criticism from political and civil groups that were opposed to granting multiple statehood demands. The resultant stir in Gorkhaland - an area covering Darjeeling, Dooars in north Bengal and some parts of Jalpaiguri - left one youth activist dead and several injured in clashes with security forces. And Jaswant Singh, who had promised to back Gorkhaland's separate statehood demand, maintained a steely silence on the issue, especially with Mamata Banerjee attacking both the Congress and BJP for fuelling illogical statehood demands. Singh's silence drew members of the GTF to Delhi. In Delhi too, Singh refused to meet them and his representatives apparently told the disgruntled GTF that he was touring his constituency. Evidently, Singh was doing nothing like that, leading the enraged GTF to file the missing complaint. GTF leader Manish Tamang explained to Hindustan Times, "Recently, we had gone to Delhi with the Gorkhaland demand and had tried to meet our MP Jaswant Singh. We were told he was not in Delhi but in Darjeeling. But after returning, we could not locate him in Darjeeling. Hence, we lodged a missing diary.
Now that he is required to speak for Gorkhaland he has gone missing." Singh's misfortunes don't seem to have ended at just that. Sensing that the GJM, which had provided rousing support to him during the 2009 polls, had developed a fair amount of cynicism about his motives, the BJP replaced him with SS Ahluwalia in Darjeeling. While the country was caught up discussing how sidelining Singh was one of Narendra Modi's ways of leaving the old guard out in the cold, the party took the best measure possibly to counter the discontent pooling against Singh in his bastion Darjeeling. Some would say, the BJP's move worked. The GJM has pledged to support the new candidate in Darjeeling and the political outfit still has reasonable clout in the area. Singh consequently quit the party after being denied a ticket and has now decided to walk it alone in Barmer, Rajasthan. Can Bengal's favourite footballer score a maiden goal for Trinamool? There is little doubt about the fact that Mamata Banerjee doesn't mind cracking a cruel whip or two to keep her flock together. Consequently, when her two-year-old government was faced with stiff resistance from Gorkhaland, as an offshoot of the Andhra split in 2013, she dealt it with an iron first. When talks fell through, she deployed paramilitary forces in a restive Darjeeling to snuff out the rebellion. Several GJM leaders were arrested and thrown into jail for rioting. As the agitation started to lose steam in the face of stringent measures taken by the administration the GJM came around and offered to clear up 'misunderstandings' with Banerjee's government. Banerjee, who had so far been inflexible, readily accepted the olive branch extended to her and reiterated her famed 'maa, maati, manush' stance, by saying she in invariably with the people of her state, including Darjeeling. Her state still, mind you. Instead of issuing warnings or suchlike she appealed for peace and promised a bounty of development for the Hills. PTI quotes Banerjee saying: "I am sorry for disruption in the development process in the Darjeeling hills, but my government is committed to expedite it in the interest of people there as well as the entire state." She announced allocations from the state budget for hydel power projects and national highways development in the region. Now, she has dealt a body blow to the opposition in Darjeeling by fielding retired footballer Bhaichung Bhutia from the Darjeeling constituency. Though the footballer hails from Sikkim, Darjeeling and several other parts of north Bengal has a sizable Bhutia population. Where Banerjee has dealt with Gorkhaland like a tough school principal, cold and sympathetic alternately, she has now appealed to the oldest and the deepest conflict of the north eastern population of the country. The demand for Gorkhaland has been mostly built around a plea for equal development for the north eastern Gorkha tribe, which feels left behind in the race for progress. Though there are several conflicts of rights and ascendancy among the various tribes in separate NE states, including these parts of north Bengal, they are all bound by a collective disapproval of the mainstream Indian administration's lack of empathy for them. By fielding a Bhutia, Banerjee played the best gamble she could. Not only is Bhaichung a personality homogeneously applauded and looked up at by the entire state, his being a Bhutia helps deal with the Gorkhas' feeling of disenfranchisement better. With the BJP on wobbly ground courtesy Jaswant Singh's no-show, this might be just a perfect pitch for the TMC to make a Darjeeling debut. Bhutia's humble beginnings in Sikkim, and his success achieved on the ground of Bengal, makes him the perfect dream-vendor for Banerjee in Darjeeling. If Bhutia does manage to strike the us-against-Indian-mainland chord with close to one lakh voters in Darjeeling, the BJP might lose a precious seat in West Bengal.
Indian Gorkhas
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