Stir gives Gurung a new political lifeline
residents of Darjeeling and adjoining areas to vote via SMS for Tamang, who ultimately won the 2008 contest.
Nearly a decade later, Tamang has fallen off the radar. But Gurung is still going strong, even though he is on the run since violence erupted over the ‘imposition’ of Bengali language in the hills by the West Bengal government headed by chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Having signed a tripartite agreement with the Centre and the State and settled for an autonomous administrative council instead of full-fledged statehood, Gurung was faced with the real possibility of losing both the plot and personal personality. The latest controversy, however, has given him a fresh lifeline.
“He may in hiding for now, but his political future has been secured for the short term,” said a bureaucrat not willing to be named.
Few, in fact, dare to speak aloud about Gurung publicly in the hills. The 53-year-old leader has over the years acquired a fearsome reputation. He once led the dreaded Gorkha Volunteer Corps, the militant wing of Ghising’s Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF).
The Corps is suspected to have been behind many killings and kidnappings that marked the Gorkhaland agitation in the 1980s.
Gurung first became an elected member of the autonomous council from Chow Bazar of Darjeeling town in 1989 after the murder of the sitting member Rudra Kumar Pradhan.
“He rules by fear,” said a police official who once served in the hills. Ghising had to flee Darjeeling after his bitter fallout with Gurung. Madan Tamang, a prominent Gorkha leader critical of Gurung, was hacked to death in daylight in 2012.
The latest turmoil, however, has overshadowed Gurung’s controversial past. With popular sentiment in the hills ranged against the state government, Gurung has once again emerged as the rallying point for local pride.
Still the elected chief executive officer of the autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, Gurung – the son of a tea garden worker - has now threatened to carry on with the agitation for statehood until it is achieved. “We will not stop,” he has said. With the hills suddenly ablaze, even his rivals have begun to fall in line. Neeraj Zimba, the spokesman of Ghising’s GNLF, have expressed readiness to agitate for separate Gorkhaland under Gurung’s leadership.
Dr Harka Bahadur Chettri, leader of the Jan Andolan Party which boycotted the meeting, has also lent support to the Gorkhaland issue.
Ironically, Gurung finds himself on a strong wicket while on the run. The imposition of Bengali – a misplaced fear since the government has since clarified that it is optional and not compulsory – has allowed him fresh political ammunition. If he is arrested, he will acquire a brighter halo.