Binay Tamang on Monday claimed before journalists that his faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha was the “single largest party” in the hills and rolled out poll figures to drive home his point.

Tamang’s decision to assert the figures before the media is seen as an attempt to send a message to Mamata Banerjee that his faction is now more popular than Bimal Gurung’s faction.

In Darjeeling hills, the BJP won the Assembly seats of Darjeeling and Kurseong while the Binay Tamang camp won the Kalimpong seat.

In the three hill seats, a total of 4,98,983 votes were cast.

“Poll figures suggest that we are the single largest party in the hills as the BJP was in alliance with five other parties and they polled only seven per cent of votes more than us,” said Tamang in the news meet.

The BJP is in alliance with the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists (CPRM), a faction of the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL), the Gorkhaland Rajya Nirman Morcha (GRNM) and the SUMETE Mukti Morcha (SuMuMo). The most significant ally of BJP, however, is the GNLF.

Figure suggests that the BJP alliance polled 39.2 per cent of the total votes cast in the hills followed by Binay Tamang’s Morcha at 32.9 per cent and the rival Gurung faction of Morcha at 20.6 per cent. The Gurung faction was supported by hill Trinamul though the Bengal state leadership remained silent on this development.

With Trinamul storming to power in Bengal, Mamata’s support is crucial for both Tamang and Gurung, who are both allies of Trinamul.

Observers believe that the Tamang camp has reasons to “feel good” with their performance this time as they had, before 2021, never won any major election since the faction was formed in 2017.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Tamang’s faction had polled only around 20 per cent of the total votes cast in the hills compared to 70 per cent of votes that went to BJP alliance, which also included Gurung faction, then.

“Many were of the opinion that the Tamang camp would never be politically accepted in the hills as they were termed betrayers (allegedly responsible for derailing the 2017 Gorkhaland agitation),” said a hill observer, adding that the figures now tell a different story.

“So one can understand the assertion being made by Tamang today,” the observer added.

In the last 14 years, Gurung’s faction had never faced such a rout like this, relegated to the third position.

“Gurung must accept that he is losing relevance in hill politics. He is no longer a factor,” said Tamang.

However, many believe Gurung’s political obituary cannot be written this early.

“Election to local bodies such as the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) or even civic bodies are fought and won on different issues. Hence, one cannot completely write off Gurung from hill politics, even though he has much ground to recover,” said a political analyst from the hills.

Poll figures also suggest that Darjeeling town overwhelmingly supported the BJP alliance.

“However, the moot question is will apolitical people who voted for BJP in the Assembly polls vote the same in local elections?” asked the analyst.

GNLF leaders maintain that going by the results, the “silent majority” was with the GNLF.

Many believe that the GNLF made significant inroads within the Darjeeling municipality area but its rural presence needs to be stronger.