After big names like Subramaniam Swamy and Hardeep Singh Puri did the rounds, the BJP finally picked Raju Sing Bista as the party’s candidate from the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat.
The question in everyone’s mind now is, “Who is Raju Singh Bista?” Most people never heard of him before his name came out of nowhere as the BJP’s candidate for the constituency. Local news outlets have described him as an entrepreneur who used to be the director of an NGO.
The question in everyone’s mind now is, “Who is Raju Singh Bista?” Most people never heard of him before his name came out of nowhere as the BJP’s candidate for the constituency. Local news outlets have described him as an entrepreneur who used to be the director of an NGO.
Bista is a non-entity in the political arena of Darjeeling, where the
demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland dominates. According to media
reports, born in Manipur, Bista is a member of the RSS. A photograph
shared by the spokesperson of the Gorkha National Liberation Front
(GNLF) with Raju Bista (at his Delhi residence) has M.S. Golwarkar, an
RSS ideologue in the frame. The photo was widely shared on Facebook and
other social media platforms.
Unlike Bista, former non-Gorkha BJP MPs of Darjeeling, Jaswant Singh
and S.S. Ahluwalia, were not associated with the RSS right from the
beginning of their political career. Bista is both politically and ideologically right-wing.
If he wins the seat with his Gorkha image, it could possibly change the
political dynamic of the hills. Polarisation, which is what the RSS is
known to promote, could then take the front seat in the region.
Voters in dilemma
BJP supporters in Darjeeling are now in a dilemma: how to relate to Bista.
They are asking many questions on social media: does Bista know Darjeeling well enough? Can an unknown outsider be trusted?
Has he been associated with the Gorkhaland movement in the past?
The general public, on the other hand, has different questions. Why
did the BJP choose Bista for Darjeeling? Why did the party not choose
known faces like Swamy or Puri? Why did the combined force of the GNLF
and the Bimal Gurung faction of the Gorkha JanMukti Morcha (GJM) declare
allegiance to the BJP without any conditions? Is it because the GNLF
and the Bimal Gurung faction are desperate to come back to power? Or is
it because the BJP has a low chance of retaining Darjeeling? Did Bista’s
deep pockets influence the decision?
By introducing an unknown face like Bista, the BJP has already
surrendered the battle. It is also speculated that Mamata Banerjee and
Narendra Modi have a tacit understanding for the Darjeeling seat and
hence the BJP has fielded a weak candidate. It must be recalled that
both worked together to dismantle the 2017 Gorkhaland movement. The
former used her state forces and the latter sent 15 companies of Central
Armed Police Forces to Darjeeling. Under the direction of the
respective governments, both forces killed many innocent Gorkhas.
Amid the rising election fever, videos and pictures are being
circulated, reminding netizens of the state’s role in 2017. In that
process, an argument is being made to favour the party ruling at the
Centre. Such political messaging is a deliberate attempt to politicise
sentiments of the electorate, to evoke fear of the state’s past
atrocities.
As the mythologist, Devdutt Pattanaik says, “When we see chaos, we
seek control”. It is crystal clear today that the chaos created by some
opportunists was meant to seek control. To make inroads in a state where
they did not have a single MP in 2004 and just two in 2014. The BJP is
now aiming to win up to 22 in the upcoming general election.
The other contenders
The TMC has nominated Amar Singh Rai for the seat. The CPI(M) has
fielded Saman Pathak, the Congress has chosen Sankar Malakar as its
candidate while the Jan Andolan Party’s (JAP) candidate is Dr Harka
Bahadur Chettri. The candidate of the Communist Party Revolutionary and
Marxist (CPRM), R.B. Rai, has withdrawn his nomination and hasn’t yet
declared his support to any candidate.
The Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency has seven assembly segments.
The table below illustrates the voting patterns of the 2016 assembly
polls and the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In 2014, the GJM-BJP got 42.73% of
the total votes polled, whereas the TMC bagged 25.47%. The BJP has a
negative margin of -12.47%. The TMC made a significant gain of 5.48% in
the 2016 assembly polls and had a slight edge in the total vote
percentage over the GJM-BJP. The Trinamol Congress also won the Mirik
municipal election in 2017.
This time around, the TMC’s vote share is also likely to increase in
the Hills as the Binay faction of the GJM is supporting it. Most of the
state funded community developmental boards are also probably supporting
Amar Singh Rai. Thus, the vote in the hills will splinter and the BJP
candidate’s chances of winning the seat are much slimmer. The party’s
support base in the plains is insignificant.
Though the GNLF is supporting the BJP this time, its strength has
been substantially decimated following the GJM’s ascension to power in
2007. The GNLF managed an average of 8.33% of total votes polled in
three hill assembly segments in the 2011 assembly polls. Since then,
they haven’t participated in any elections, but supported the TMC in the
2014 Lok Sabha polls, 2016 assembly polls, 2017 municipal polls and the
JAP in the 2016 assembly polls.They can make a difference of 18-24% of
the vote in the hills, which is close to 8-10% of the total votes in the
seven segments.
The silence of bigger alliances like the BJP-GNLF-Bimal and the
TMC-Binay factions in Gorkhaland has added a twist to the 2019
Darjeeling election. Forgetting the key issues, these parties are
fighting in order to stop the other from coming to power.
Biswadeep Tamang is a student at Jadavpur University.
https://thewire.in/
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