Prahlad Singh Patel, the Union minister of state for tourism and culture, reached here and went to the Darjeeling hills on Friday on a three-day visit aimed at reaching out to stakeholders of tea and tourism industries.

The visit — first by a central minister to the hills in the last year or so — is significant ahead of Assembly elections, particularly because the saffron brigade no longer has the support of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the largest political force in the hills on which the BJP has piggybacked to win Parliament elections thrice since 2009.

In his official twitter account, Patel said he would visit Darjeeling from January 8 to 10. Darjeeling MP Raju Bista is accompanying him.

“During the visit, we will be meeting and interacting with stakeholders of the tourism industry, tea industry and people associated with local art and culture. We will also be meeting with BJP karyakartas, alliance partners and holding organisational meetings with party workers from Darjeeling and Kalimpong,” Bista has written in a social media post.

Sources in the BJP said the visit would be politically significant for the party at a time it was forced to redraw its strategy after Bimal Gurung had severed his ties with the saffron camp in October last year and extended support to Mamata Banerjee and her party. Gurung had been an ally of the BJP since 2009.

This made the BJP try to get most of the other hill-based parties on board. Leaders of a number of parties like the GNLF, ABGL and the CPRM went to Delhi and held talks with the BJP.

“After Gurung’s defection, it was the first move of the BJP to get other parties, each of which has some support base in the hills, on board. Now, the minister’s visit seems to be the second move of the saffron camp that intends to draw support from hill residents who are associated with tea and tourism. These are the two sectors which engage the maximum number of people in the hills,” pointed out a veteran in hill politics.

Altogether, around five lakh people in the hills are dependent on tea and tourism sectors directly or indirectly.

The expert also mentioned that the minister may announce some financial relief to those associated with tea and tourism as they suffered heavy losses in the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown.

A senior hotelier in Darjeeling said from both the sectors, demands were raised before the central government for financial packages, subsidies and other benefits.