Subrata Nagchoudhury
Posted: Sunday , Apr 26, 2009 at 0048 hrs IST
Indian Express

Darjeeling: “In Rajasthani, there’s a saying, if you do not wish to go to a village, do not ask the way to it. The BJP believes in smaller states. I believe in the issue of Gorkhaland. I want to go down the path. And I will see how best to approach the village, the path,” says BJP’s candidate for Darjeeling Jaswant Singh.

It’s more than music to the ears of Bimal Gurung of the radical Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), who seized the reins of the movement for a separate state — including the entire Darjeeling district and parts of Jalpaiguri —from veteran Subhash Ghising and is now rooting for Jaswant Singh.

The GJM’s agitation for a separate state paralysed this region last summer, cut if off from the rest of the country for almost a month. It issued a diktat to introduce “GL” in vehicle licence plates for Gorkhaland, forced shopkeepers to pull down signboards that said West Bengal and even asked residents to stop paying taxes.

During the agitation, both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet colleague Pranab Mukherjee backed state Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in his opposition against the GJM. But by roping in Jaswant Singh and the BJP, Gurung has successfully placed the Gorkhaland issue on the national radar.

The BJP had then preferred to remain silent but Singh’s open espousal of a separate state has, ironically, rattled even the state unit of his party.

Not only the Congress and the CPM are united in their opposition to Gorkhaland — the sitting MP is Congress’s Dawa Narbula who is also a candidate this time — even the state BJP leadership is wary. Senior state BJP leaders including Tapan Sikdar, Rahul Sinha and Col. Sabyasachi Bagchi have opposed the GJM.

Asked about this dichotomy, Singh says: “It’s possible. It is a federal structure. There is absolutely no equivocation. There’s absolutely no ambiguity about the cause of Gorkhaland. How can I be a candidate for Darjeeling and be half-hearted about the issue? This will be my 11th general election out of 15 since Independence and I have never attempted to mislead anyone.”

Key to his statehood plank is the neglect of the region. Says Singh: “If you travel through the only motorable road to Darjeeling, your body will tell you. We call this the Queen of the Hills? This is the access road? During three decades of CPM rule and two plus decades of Subash Ghising's rule, surely somebody had responsibility for such a road. Municipal supply of water is once in 17 days. Inhuman.”

Gurung couldn’t be more pleased. Given that for the first time, Gorkhaland is being pushed by a national party, he has transformed this election into a virtual referendum on the issue and is confident of a victory.

Isn’t the BJP riding a tiger? “The challenge lies precisely there,” says Singh. “My endeavour is to find and reach a point of reconciliation. If Bengalis are emotional about Darjeeling being separated, I understand that. But one has to also consider the high emotionalism of the votaries of Gorkhaland. My challenge is there.”

“We camped in Delhi for a month, ours was a single-point agenda. You support a separate state of Gorkhaland, we give you one Lok Sabha seat,” said a GJM central committee member on the condition of anonymity.

“The Congress, refused, the SP, RJD refused. We even talked to the CPM leadership for lending support to separate statehood and we told them we will reinstate the Communists in the hills. They did not agree. Finally, the BJP did.”

The deal clinched, the GJM offered a bonus to the BJP. It promised to ensure and enlist Gorkha support in over 15 Lok Sabha seats in the North-east and in Uttarakhand.

Even though Darjeeling is a three-cornered contest with the Congress and the CPM in the fray, the GJM isn’t worried.

Of the seven Assembly segments in the Darjeeling Parliamentary constituency, three are in the hills — Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong. These account for 5.7 lakh voters. The four in the plains are Matigara, Siliguri, Phansidewa and Chopra accounting for another 6.5 lakh votes which are going to be split between the Congress, the CPM and the GJM.

Gurung is working overtime to ensure maximum turnout. “It must go up to over 80%, compared to a little over 60% last time. We have been told that not a single Gorkha ballot should be wasted in the hills as well as in the plains,” he said.

So as soon as Singh’s candidature was announced, in one of his early poll meetings in Darjeeling Chourasta, Gurung issued a veiled threat to other communities in the hills. The Christians and the Muslims face a dilemma.

Darjeeling Christians did not observe Christmas last year to express solidarity with Kandhamal victims. But in this election they might not have an alternative — their “cause” is one the BJP is pushing for.