The United Front for Separate State (UFSS), a joint forum of nine organisations demanding a north Bengal state, wants Bimal Gurung, the president of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, to contest the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat.

Roshan Giri, the general secretary of the Morcha, admitted that the party received the proposal.

“We have received the proposal but the party is yet to take a stand on when Bimal Gurung would contest the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat,” Giri told The Telegraph.

Not yet a year old, the UFSS is a common forum of nine regional political parties and organisations — the Kamtapur Progressive Party, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the Kamtapur People’s Party (United), the Joy Birsa Munda Ulgulan, the SC/ST Movement Committee, the Progressive Peoples Party, the Akhil Bharatiya Rajbanshi Samaj, the Greater Cooch Behar Peoples’ Association and the Bhumiputra Unnayan Committee — and has been holding meetings across north Bengal.

The UFSS has decided to contest all the eight north Bengal Lok Sabha seats.

Even though Giri said that the party has not yet decided on the UFSS proposal, the Morcha has started an exercise to project Gurung.

On Monday, the youth wing of the Morcha said that they had passed a proposal stating that they would want Gurung to contest the upcoming Parliament election.

“We waited for Narendra Modi’s public meeting at Siliguri on Saturday hoping some announcement would come for the Gorkhas. There was nothing. It is then we decided we should work by ourselves to raise our issues,” said a youth leader of Morcha, adding their wing too has passed a proposal backing Gurung as a Lok Sabha candidate.

The development has spiced up the Darjeeling contest further. Former bureaucrat Gopal Lama is contesting as a BGPM candidate on a Trinamul ticket. The BJP has not yet announced its candidate.

Gurung, who once lorded over Darjeeling hills and was instrumental in ensuring the win of MPs and MLAs from Darjeeling hills, greatly lost his support base after he decided to join hands with Trinamul in 2020.

This was after being on the run for three years from 2017 soon after he launched the Gorkhaland statehood agitation and closed the hills for a record 104 days.

After resurfacing and tying up with Trinamul, Gurung’s party lost all elections it took part in, including Assembly, GTA, municipality and panchayat.

“If Gurung does decide to contest the election, he will be indulging in a major gamble. A loss in this election would hit his party and supporters hard. A success on the other hand would help revive the Morcha,” said an observer.

Many in the hills agree that Gurung’s organisational strength is not the strongest at the moment.