West Bengal: TMC Fields Gopal Lama From Darjeeling Seat (image-X/IWMDarjeelingP)Trinamool Congress candidate for the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat, Gopal Lama started off his election campaign in Siliguri subdivision’s Naxalbari block with a strong goal. His intention is to prove to the people the “hollow promises” of the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mr. Lama, a retired civil servant, stated that the MP had assured to develop Hatighisa as a model village under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna (SAGY) but no efforts towards fulfilling the promise has been made. He also added that it was the state government, and not the MP, who extended drinking water facilities in over 1,000 households in the village.
The 70-year-old Mr. Lama recently joined the Anit Thapa-led Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM). Previously, he had served as the Darjeeling additional district magistrate. He was appointed as an officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) till 2017, following his retirement in 2014.
The Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency comprises vidhan sabhas including Kalimpong, Kurseong, Matigara-Naxalbari, Siliguri, Phansidewa and Chopra.
Since 1957, the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat has been passed around between two major political parties: the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)). However, since 2009, the saffron party took over, kicking the other two political parties out of the court.
BJP’s Jaswant Singh secured the seat with 4.9 lakh votes in 2009. The party nominated SS Ahluwalia who won the seat with 4.8 lakh votes. In 2019, the party put a third candidate by the name of Raju Bista who won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat with a landslide victory. While his opponent and runner-up, Amar Singh Rai from TMC secured 3.3 lakh votes, BJP’s Bista secured a whopping 7.5 lakh votes.
Once again, the party has chosen a different candidate by the name of Anit Thapa to contest the elections against TMC’s Gopal Lama.
Alok Chakraborty, the chairman of Darjeeling district Trinamool said, “Our candidate is literally a son of the soil and not someone like the BJP MPs who were planted by the party here with empty promises. we are determined to give him a lead in votes from the plains,” as quoted by Telegraph India report.
The Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat has a voter base consisting of 16.8 percent SCs, 19.4 percent STs and 14.4 percent Muslim voters.