Hill political parties are raising the Gorkhaland statehood issue during the ongoing campaign for the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) elections due on June 26, but the approach to the demand by two principal hill parties this time is subdued.

The cry for Gorkhaland that had swayed hill elections for decades went silent during the Assembly elections of 2021 and Darjeeling civic elections early this year. In contrast, 2017 civic elections were fought on the slogan “Gorkhaland versus Bengal” by Bimal Gurung’s Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

This time, new parties Hamro Party and Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), which performed well in the recent Darjeeling civic polls, released their GTA poll manifesto where Gorkhaland has again found mention minus the shrillness.

The BGPM promised to pass a resolution on Gorkhaland in the very first GTA Sabha meeting.

“After the BGPM forms the GTA board, it will pass a resolution on the formation of a Gorkhaland at its first GTA Sabha meeting and send it to the Centre and state,” the BGPM has stated.

Hamro Party, led by hill leader Ajoy Edwards which won the Darjeeling civic polls this year when it was just three months old, however, promised to tackle the issue differently.

The GTA election manifesto of Hamro Party states: “Establishment of Centre for Gorkhaland Studies to provide research and academic support to our demand for a separate state and (that will) also act as a world class Nepali language research centre.”

Hamro Party’s campaign is geared on the theme “janata ko raj (the rule of the people)”.

Hamro Party is ALSO speaking extensively on the need to break the alleged leader-contractor nexus and bring about more transparency in governance.

The BGPM is stressing on peace, stability and progress.

Anit Thapa, its president, said: “The GTA recognises Gorkhaland. Many say Anit Thapa can’t raise the demand of Gorkhaland but I will raise it at the right time when the opportunity is right.”

Thapa was also clear that to run the GTA smoothly, in the event his party won the elections, he had to work closely with the state government as the body was within Bengal.

The BJP, which has often given the impression that it backs the Gorkhaland demand, has never clearly supported it during elections, especially during the Bengal Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

In 2014, the BJP said it would “sympathetically examine and appropriately consider the long pending demands of the Gorkhas, Adivasis and other people of Darjeeling district and the Dooars region; of the Kamtapuri, Rajbanshi and other people of north Bengal (including recognition of their language)”.

In its 2019 Lok Sabha election manifesto, the BJP changed the wording, stating that the party would work out a “permanent political solution” for the region, without clearly defining it.