Can Gorkhaland be far when elections are round the corner in the Darjeeling hills? Not really.
Darjeeling had witnessed three elections — to the Bengal Assembly in 2021 and the Darjeeling municipality and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) in 2022 — where the statehood demand had been kept on the back burner.
There had been early indications from the Darjeeling-based parties that the trend would remain the same for the July 8 panchayat elections, but not any longer.
Interestingly, the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), which had remained silent on the Gorkhaland issue in the last three elections, raked up the statehood demand on Monday.
“(Darjeeling BJP MP) Raju Bista had once promised to Mahakal Baba (guardian deity of Darjeeling) that he would achieve Gorkhaland. Has he fulfilled his promise? Let the BJP promise in its (panchayat) election manifesto that the party will grant Gorkhaland upon winning the rural polls. (Then), we will withdraw all our candidates from the fray,” BGPM president Anit Thapa said.
The BGPM’s decision to rake up the Gorkhaland demand is aimed at cornering the BJP, which is walking a tightrope on the issue because of time constraints.
The BJP had promised a "permanent political solution" for the hills in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll manifesto.
“Not many questions were being raised against the BJP in the past as several people in the hill believed that the party would deliver on its promises of a 'permanent political solution' (PPS). However, time is running out as the next Lok Sabha polls are less than a year away and not much headway has been seen,” said an observer.
Thapa, too, seems to be hitting at the BJP keeping the time constraint in mind, said the observer.
The BGPM is still seen as a party which is not fully committed to the Gorkhaland issue. It is in an unofficial alliance with the Trinamul Congress, which is against the division of Bengal.
“It is interesting that Thapa is now using the Gorkhaland issue to hit the BJP which was largely perceived as a pro-statehood party, at least in the hills, till now,” said the observer.
Gorkhaland had always been an electoral issue in the hills. “During the 2017 municipality elections, the campaign in the hills centred around Gorkhaland versus Bengal,” said the observer, who added that Thapa's reference to the statehood demand in the panchayat election campaign was “interesting.”
There are social media posts where MP Bista is being questioned about the "PPS" during his campaign for the rural elections.