The bustle around the upcoming panchayat elections on Wednesday drew most of the crowds and traffic to the rural areas, leaving Darjeeling town pleasantly surprised with fewer vehicles.
Nominations to gram panchayat and panchayat samiti picked up in the hills from Tuesday. The last day to file nominations being Thursday, large crowds were witnessed in the block development offices across the hills on Wednesday as candidates submitted their papers.
This left Darjeeling town with less traffic.
A parent of St Joseph’s School (North Point) whose son takes the school bus described the contrast.
“On Tuesday, my son’s school bus reached Darjeeling Motor Stand around 11.50am. Today (Wednesday), the bus reached around 11.15 am,” the parent said, adding that on both days school got over at 11am after semester exams and the distance between the school and Darjeeling Motor Stand is around 3km.
Taxi syndicate representatives admitted that around 30 per cent of the syndicate vehicles did not turn up in Darjeeling town on Wednesday.
“After months, the Lebong Cart Road in Darjeeling had fewer vehicles,” said Rupendra Pradhan, a resident of Haridashatta, Darjeeling.
Samir Singhal, secretary, Darjeeling Hotel Owners’ Association said the flow of tourists had also gone down by around 20 per cent on Wednesday, which contributed to less traffic, but the weekend rush would be back.
While vehicles made a beeline to the rural areas of Darjeeling on Wednesday, Saran Subba, 36, a former armyman, chose to run from Sonada to Sukhiapokhri to file his nomination papers. The distance between the two places is 21km.
“I started at 4.15am and reached Sukhiapokhri in four hours. The reason I decided to run was to send a message that we should stop using vehicles to cover short distances. We need to take care of the environment as well,” said Subba, who is contesting as an Independent for the panchayat samiti seat from Sonada.
Subba, who left the army in 2010, gives free training to army aspirants of Sonada.
On Wednesday, a few Trinamul candidates also filed their nominations. “Our candidates are filing nominations in less than five per cent of the seats,” said Shanta Chhetri, the party's Rajya Sabha member. Sources had earlier told The Telegraph that Trinamul would contest the rural polls in tacit understanding with the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatrantik Morcha (BGPM).
Raju Bista, Darjeeling BJP MP, on Wednesday complained in writing to state election commissioner Rajiva Sinha that BGPM leader and GTA Sabha member Satish Pokhrel manhandled BJP candidates who had gone to Bijanbari to file their nominations.
Pokhrel did not take calls from this newspaper.