Due to some reason or the other, my travel has been restricted since the past few weeks which means I haven’t ventured out of the Hills ever since the Parliamentary elections were declared. This in turn means that I am unaware of the election atmosphere in other parts of the country other than what is happening in the Darjeeling region.
What is taking me by surprise is the total lack of enthusiasm and fervor that Parliamentary elections generally generate in the Hills as in other places. Elections are said to be the biggest festival in the celebration of any democracy but forget festivity or any celebration, what appears, this time round, is more a sign of resignation to the inevitable. The gusto with which party supporters went about their campaigns, the zeal with which political netas organized street corner meetings or public rallies, the high pitched dramas that took place and the door to door campaigns (read empty promises) that the Netas made, or whether it is interest of the general public, all appears totally missing as of now, and the fact is that now hardly a week remains before campaign ends. Whether this is an acceptance of the inescapable fate that awaits the hills, or whether the voting public is fed up with the lies and deceit that is shoved down their throats before every elections or whether the public is just not interested in the election drama, is something I really cannot pinpoint but the fact is that these elections do not really feel like the festival of democracy that we generally are used to.
Of course the John Travlota dance of comical proportions by a certain neta, the divorce of another from the political party he was elected from, the yo-yo like fluctuation of loyalty of a former undeclared king of the Hills, the indecisiveness of the world largest party in declaring its candidate for the Darjeeling parliamentary seat, the emergence of independent candidates like the firebrand Bandana Rai and the alliance between the Congress (I) and CPI(M) does provide a script for a potboiler film in the making but what remains to be seen is that whether this lack of interest in the campaign period is a sign of change or a sign of helplessness.
What political observers feel is that it will not be as easy for Mr Raju Bista to retain his seat as it was winning it in the year 2019. Mr Bista had won with a mammoth margin of more than 4,13,000 votes, which was almost 60% of the total votes cast, in the last elections which was no doubt spectacular by any standard but then politics and circumstances were different in 2019. The Modi wave was at its peak then, the BGPM party, which rules the GTA presently, was not established at the grass root level then, the CPI(M) and the Congress(I) were contesting separately while this time they have a candidate who is much more acceptable and charismatic, the Bandana Rai and B P Bajgai factors were not present in 2019, the deafening silence of the BJP’s manifesto on the issue of Gorkhaland, the candidate of TMC-BGPM this time around appears stronger and better connected in the Terai region of the Darjeeling Parliamentary constituency and of course the general anti-incumbency factor against the ruling BJP government, the bulging unemployment and soaring inflation will also be a factor this time around.
To make any assessment of the election results would not only be stupid of me and also against the strict guidelines of the Election Commission but of course I can make an analysis using the 2019 results as a guideline. Mr Bista polled close to 7,50,000 votes in 2019 with the TMC/Binay Tamang/Anit Thapa candidate, Mr Amar Rai, polling less than half that number. There are seven assembly constituencies in the Darjeeling seat out of which four (Siliguri, Matigara, Phansidewa and Chopra) in the Plains and 3 (Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong) in the Hills. Approximately 60% votes are in the plains while the remaining 40% in the Hills.
In elections prior to 2019 what was observed as that the Hills generally voted en bloc for a certain candidate while the votes from the plains were generally divided between the various contesting candidates. This resulted inevitably in the victory of the candidate that the Hills were supporting. The situation is different now- I attribute this to the lack a charismatic and strong leader in the Hills as also to the emergence of BJP with a base both in the Hill and Plains segment of the Darjeeling Parliamentary constituency.
What was interesting to note was that Mr Bista secured more votes than Mr Rai both in the Hills as well as in the Plains. In fact after the emergence of GNLF in the late 1980s this was the first time that the votes in the Hills were fragmented and the result is there for all to see. Now the Hill votes are fragmented while the Plains have started to vote en bloc.
In the 2019 elections Mr Bista secured more votes in six of the seven Assembly Segments of the Darjeeling Lok Sabha Constituency and only in the Chopra Assembly segment did the TMC candidate poll more votes. If a Plains-Hills comparative has to be made then in the Plains, Mr. Bista secured about 4,05,000 votes while Mr. Amar Rai secured about 2,36,500 votes while in the Hills the former secured about 3,44,100 votes while the latter managed just 1,03,500 votes. My reading is that in the coming elections, Mr Bista will lose about 20% votes in the Hills while in Plains it will lose about 15% of the votes, the reasons for which I have already elaborated earlier in the article.
Readers can do their own mathematics.
(Views are personal. The author is the Editor of Himalayan Times, Kalimpong)