Morcha fails ballot test - Party’s Mussoorie candidate loses, forfeits deposit

Darjeeling, March 7.TT: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s decision to test electoral fortunes in other parts of the country with significant Gorkha population came a cropper with the party candidate forfeiting his deposit in the Mussoorie seat in the Uttarakhand Assembly polls.

The Morcha had fielded Jagdish Chauhan in Mussoorie to assert itself as a pan-Indian party looking after the interest of the community across the country.

Both party president Bimal Gurung and general secretary Roshan Giri had been to Mussoorie to campaign for Chauhan before the January 30 election.

This is the first time that the Morcha contested any election outside Bengal.

The election results, which were declared yesterday, saw BJP candidate Ganesh Joshi winning the seat by bagging 28,097 votes. Jot Singh Gunsola of the Congress came second with 18, 321 votes.

Chauhan fared miserably and managed to get only 444 votes.

Asked about the poor performance, Giri said: “The results were poor as we did not get enough time to campaign in Mussoorie. We merely held one roadshow which was not enough. The Gorkha votes also got divided among the candidates of our community.”

Other Gorkha candidates, who had contested in Mussoorie, fared much better than Chauhan.

While Godavari Thapa Thapli, who contested as an Independent came third and managed 9,248 votes, Bhupendra Singh Chhetri of the Uttarakhand-based Gorkha Democratic Front got 2,628. A total of 15 candidates contested in Mussoorie.

Although there is a considerable presence of Gorkha population in Mussoorie and the rest of Uttarakhand, observers believe that the result is a reminder to the Morcha that Gorkha voters in other parts of the country have their own regional issues which determine their electoral choices.

“The result only proves that the Morcha has lost the confidence of its community members in other parts of the country. The Darjeeling-based party’s decision to settle for the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration instead of carrying on with the statehood agitation which they had backed could be the final nail in the coffin,” said an observer in Darjeeling.

The Morcha’s decision to contest outside Bengal, according to party sources, was propelled by the fact that it did not want to be seen merely as a Darjeeling-based political outfit with a limited sphere of influence.

“In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, we had asked our supporters in Uttarakhand to back the BJP candidate. This time we were confident that we could contest at least the Mussoorie seat on our own,” a Morcha leader had earlier said.

“If we are able to rally all the Nepali-speaking people scattered across the country, the importance of the party in the eyes of the Centre would definitely increase. Winning an election outside Bengal where our community is present is not on our agenda. Our ultimate aim is to bring our people under one political banner.”

Asked if the party had dropped its plans to contest elections outside Bengal, Giri said: “No, we will stick to our decision to contest seats outside Bengal.”