The BJP has fielded more candidates than its allies in the hilly areas of Darjeeling district for the July 8 panchayat elections though the saffron camp entered the politics in the region 14 years ago piggybacking on local parties.
Data show that the BJP has fielded 272 candidates for gram panchayats and panchayat samitis in the hills of the district. There are 501 gram panchayat seats and 156 panchayat samiti seats.
The BJP is followed by the Hamro Party (HP) with 253 candidates, GNLF with 78, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha with 83 and the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists (CPRM) with 14. All these parties are constituents of the United Gorkha Alliance, which has been formed to take on the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) and the Trinamul Congress which are in an unofficial alliance.
The BGPM has fielded 773 candidates, while Trinamul's 39 nominees are in the fray.
A total of 693 Independents who claim that they are not affiliated to any political parties are also in the fray.
However, the BJP fielding the most number of candidates among the Opposition alliance partners has become a talking point. This is largely because until recently, the BJP had no significant presence in the local politics.
Neeraj Zimba, the secretary-general of the GNLF and Darjeeling MLA, who had contested the Assembly elections on a BJP ticket, said: “I had strongly stated that regional parties should be given precedence in local elections. However, this did not happen. This (BJP overshadowing regional parties) could have a long-term effect (on regional politics).”
Zimba is not out of track as the BJP had entered Darjeeling politics with the support of Bimal Gurung’s Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
In fact, even during the Darjeeling municipality elections in March 2022, the BJP had fielded candidates in only nine of 32 wards, leaving 24 seats to the GNLF. It is another story that the BJP-GNLF combine did not win a single seat. The HP, which is now part of the Opposition alliance, had won the Darjeeling civic elections. The municipality board, however, is now with the BGPM.
Although Zimba had reservations about the BJP fielding the most candidates, he said there were also some technical reasons for the rise in the number of BJP candidates in the rural elections.
“Many of our candidates have filed their nominations on the BJP symbol. This is because the BJP's lotus symbol would be in the top slot on the ballot paper and it would be easy to campaign with the symbol,” said Zimba.
The non-BJP parties in the United Gorkha Alliance have opted for the bulb symbol for the gram panchayat seats and the two-leaves-and-a-bud symbol for the panchayat samiti seats.
The BGPM has been allotted the symbol of two candles.
HP president Ajoy Edwards said the important thing was that the alliance was fighting together. “The fight is against corruption and we are united in this,” said Edwards.
The HP leader added that many of its candidates had also filed their nominations as Independents and opted for other symbols.
“We are still collating the data. We believe our party has fielded around 400 to 450 candidates,” said Edwards.
The Opposition parties are scheduled to meet on Saturday to sort out the presence of candidates of more than one constituent of the United Gorkha Alliance in some seats.
Observers believe that the rise in the number of BJP candidates at the cost of regional parties could dilute local issues. “If regional parties become weak, regional issues will suffer,” said an observer.
Darjeeling BJP MP Raju Bista who is the fulcrum of the Opposition alliance did not take calls from this newspaper. Calls to Kalyan Dewa, BJP president, Darjeeling (hills), also went unanswered.