Trinamool looks to make a dent in GJM’s bastion
Darjeeling hills voted on Sunday in elections that are being described as the first real fight in a region attempting to move past a bloody, 100-year-old movement for separate identity and control.
The elections to four civic bodies – Darjeeling, Mirik, Kalimpong and Kurseong – is crucial for the Trinamool Congress that is looking to open its account for the first time in the hills.
But pleasing the Queen of the Hills is an uphill task because the hills have always voted for their own, and rejected parties from the plains of West Bengal.
This is the result of decades of resentment against Kolkata for neglect and lack of development, and Bengalis who are seen to only look at Darjeeling as a hill station. On top of that is the movement for a separate Gorkhaland that has raged since 1912, and locals say has claimed more than 1,000 lives.
No mainstream party has managed to navigate this minefield for three decades, and local parties are projecting this election as a Gorkhaland vs Bengal fight. “This is the first time we are witnessing a real contest,” said Jeta Sankrityayan, a professor at the North Bengal University.
Like most Bengalis, the hills are close to Mamata’s heart. When she swept to power in 2011, she promised to solve the then festering Gorkhaland protests in 100 days, and managed to restore peace by setting up an independent administrative council.
“CM has showered unprecedented love and development for hills,” said Aroop Biswas, state PWD minister and Trinamool in-charge for the polls. But six years on, the council and its work is mired in corruption allegations and the hills are poorer than ever.
This, surprisingly, has helped the Trinamool, and hurt local parties such as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha that has dominated the council since it was set up. “There is an undercurrent that people will vote for needs and governance for the first time, and not identity,” said Sankrityayan.
But it is identity politics that has tripped the TMC in the last leg of the polls, after minister Indranil Sen said in a rally that Gorkha leaders should be expelled from the hills in steel boxes. A ripple of anger has shot through the hills and even the Trinamool’s allies are battling to save face.
In Darjeeling, the Trinamool didn’t win a single seat in the assembly election.