Hill MLA's stunt with bees rakes up political debate

DARJEELING: While the soliloquy "to be or not to be" from Shakespeare's Hamlet attained an immortal status, in Darjeeling it had a variation—'to bee or not to bee,' courtesy the latest stunt by MLA Neeraj Zimba.

Videos and photographs of Zimba—which he himself posted on his social media page on December 19—show him taking a close look at a hive. He then takes out the bees with his hands and shoves them in his mouth. He captioned the videos and photographs as: "When you go in search of honey, you must expect to be stung by bees." He then goes on to say in Nepali: "Opposition parties always say that I eat honey. I not only eat honey, I eat bees too." In another post, he assured of help to anyone interested in taking up bee keeping as a livelihood.Netizens have gone gaga over Zimba's latest feat with a huge number of memes doing the rounds. However, the act has invited flak from different political camps. "He has been elected to work for development and not to eat bees. At times, he is seen plowing fields, at times carrying head loads and cremating bodies," stated NB Khawas, Spokesperson, TMC, Darjeeling (Hills.) Zimba, a central committee member of the Gorkha National Liberation Front was elected on a BJP ticket.

"Darjeeling has so many perennial problems and issues that need to be addressed. Instead of doing that why do all these stunts," said SP Sharma, General Secretary, AIGL. "Instead of concentrating on healthcare, education, etc, he is upto such free publicity. People should ignore such stunts," stated Ajoy Edwards of Hamro Party.