Strategically important Darjeeling, 2 other Lok Sabha seats in state to go to polls today

Kolkata: Three Lok Sabha constituencies in the northern part of Bengal, including the strategically important Darjeeling seat, will go to polls in the second phase of elections on Friday.

A total of 51,17,955 voters — 26,07,389 men, 25,10,356 women, and 210 third-gender individuals — are eligible to vote across 5,298 polling stations. Of the 47 candidates, three are women. The polling for Darjeeling, Balurghat and Raiganj will decide the electoral fate of two sitting BJP MPs, including BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar, who is seeking re-election from the Balurghat seat. Majumdar is up against veteran Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and minister Biplab Mitra.

Amid a new political alignment, Darjeeling Hills are gearing up for another election as the long-pending demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland gains focus, with electoral fortunes hinging on promises of a political solution to the demand. Sitting BJP MP Raju Bista is contesting against party MLA from Kurseong, Bishnu Prasad Sharma, who is running as an Independent after his demand to field a “Bhumiputra” was not accepted by the BJP leadership. Bista, supported by the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) and the Bimal Gurung faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), aims for a second term.

Bista is an exception who has been repeated as the BJP candidate from the hills, as its previous MPs Jaswant Singh and S S Ahluwalia in 2009 and 2014 had only a single tenure. The TMC has nominated Gopal Lama, supported by Anit Thapa’s Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), which controls the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). The Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which switched alliances from the TMC, issued a ‘final ultimatum’ to the saffron camp, demanding a resolution to the hill problem as a pre-condition for their support in the elections. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP had bagged six seats whereas the TMC had bagged just one in the Lok Sabha constituency. In Raiganj, BJP has nominated Kartick Paul to compete against TMC’s Krishna Kalyani, who was a BJP MLA who had switched over to the TMC.

In Balurghat Lok Sabha seat in Bengal’s Dakshin Dinajpur district, a keen and closely fought electoral contest awaits where BJP state president Majumdar seeks re-election and is up against a formidable rival in TMC candidate Biplab Mitra, a brilliant organiser, and presently a member of the TMC ministry.