MAMATA Suffers Jolt as Darjeeling Municipality Captured By BJP

SEVENTEEN of the 32-Member Darjeeling Municipality in North Bengal have switched allegiance to BJP making it the largest party in the civic body. One Member has expired and another resigned. Earlier, GJM and GNLF had pledged support to BJP in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls. The GJM had won majority of the seats in 2017 civic body poll. The LS seat has been won by Raju Bista of BJP.His predecessors S S Ahluwalia and Jaswant Singh also belonged to the Saffron party .The assembly by-poll held along with the  LS poll was also won by BJP.Bista  has won by BJP .Bista polled 59 per cent votes. Firstpost says  “Famed for its tea gardens and tourist avenues, Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency is starkly divided into hilly and plain areas. While the Gorkhas are dominant in the three hilly Assembly segments, the plains in Siliguri division have a plurality of Bengali voters as well as Hindi-speaking Marwari traders. In fact, Chopra constituency in Uttar Dinajpur district has a substantial Muslim population too”.Concidentally, Raju Singh Bista is a Manipur-born, Gorkha entrepreneur associated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He  was supported by a raft of Gorkha parties Mann Ghishing-led Gorkha National Liberation Front, Bimal Gurung faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists and a faction of Akhil Bharat Gorkha League. His main rival is Trinamool Congress’s Amar Singh Rai (supported by Binay Tamang faction of GJM), Saman Pathak of Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Sankar Malakar of the Congress. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) and Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) announced its support to BJP on March 24 at a press conference in Delhi. GJM president Lopsang Lama and spokesperson of GNLF, Neeraj Zimba, were present at the conference. It was also decided that Separate Gorkhaland would not be an poll issue.(image courtesy to India .com)