Siliguri, 7 May: Trinamul Congress leader and north Bengal development minister Gautam
Deb is losing his sleep over the fate of Darjeeling Lok Sabha candidate
Bhaichung Bhutia, despite the fact that his party leaders are expecting a
win with a lead margin of at least 50,000 votes for the party’s star
candidate. The leaders have based their assumption on the party’s
support base in the plains, which is against the Gorkha Jan
Mukti Morcha-backed BJP candidate SS Ahluwalia, sources said today.
Mr Deb has reportedly been enquiring about the voting trend in the three Hill sub-divisions and the fate of Mr Bhutia with Nepali-speaking officials in various departments.
Notably, the Darjeeling seat was a challenge for the Trinamul Congress, and Mr Deb has been asked to bag the seat at any cost. The aim is to establish the party’s support base from the Hills to Junglemahal and to make its future prospects better.
Soon after the end of the first phase of the LS polls, the party leadership, including Mukul Roy, the Trinamul all-India general secretary, confirmed that Bhichung would win the seat.
Later, after watching the Modi ‘wave’ in the second phase of the polls in the Congress bastion, the party’s base workers informed the Darjeeling district leadership that BJP candidate Mr Ahluwalia had managed a decent percentage of votes in the four Assembly segments in the plains, and that the percentage of votes there was higher than in the Hills.
Party sources said that initially, they thought Mr Bhutia would be able to make up for the loss in the Hills with gains in the plains if the BJP candidate secures a margin of 1.5 lakh in the Hills. They also calculated that the GJMM-backed BJP candidate would not be able to bag the around 3 lakh votes, which they had achieved in 2009.
However, Left leaders have come to a conclusion that the GJMM had recovered its position in the Hills in the last three days from the polling date and that it would be able to bag a sizeable margin to take on the opponents in the plains.
Sources said the Trinamul was able to coax the administration into deploying a less number of central armed forces in the plains than in the Hills.
The number of central forces scheduled to be deployed in the plains was cut short and the “surplus” sent back to the Hills to cover cent percent polling stations to see to it that the GJMM does not rig votes.
The voters’ turnout showed that the percentage of polls was significantly higher in the four plain Assembly segments than the three segments in the Hills.
Even GJMM leader and Kalimpong MLA, Harka Bahadur Chhetri, expressed concerns after he came to know that the polling percentage in Siliguri, Matigara-Naxalbari and Phansidewa was on an average of 81, 85 and 88 respectively.
Though Trinamul activists allegedly managed to secure votes in their bases in the absence of the Central Para Military Forces at many places in the plains, the party sources expressed concern about a division of the vote bank, which were intact in 2011, among he three political parties--BJP, Congress and Trinamul.
“Even the BJP has managed to erode the Left vote bank in many polling stations. But a section of the Congress supporters cast votes to the CPI-M candidate in Naxalbari and Phansidewa when they realized that the party candidate Sujay Ghatak’s prospects were bleak,” an INTTUC leader said.
According to GJMM sources, Mr Ahluwalia managed 70 percent votes from its base, while the rest had been divided among others, including the Independent candidate Mahendra P Lama in the plains.
Political observers now wonder how Mr Bhutia would make up for the BJP’s huge margin in the Hills.(SNS)
Mr Deb has reportedly been enquiring about the voting trend in the three Hill sub-divisions and the fate of Mr Bhutia with Nepali-speaking officials in various departments.
Notably, the Darjeeling seat was a challenge for the Trinamul Congress, and Mr Deb has been asked to bag the seat at any cost. The aim is to establish the party’s support base from the Hills to Junglemahal and to make its future prospects better.
Soon after the end of the first phase of the LS polls, the party leadership, including Mukul Roy, the Trinamul all-India general secretary, confirmed that Bhichung would win the seat.
Later, after watching the Modi ‘wave’ in the second phase of the polls in the Congress bastion, the party’s base workers informed the Darjeeling district leadership that BJP candidate Mr Ahluwalia had managed a decent percentage of votes in the four Assembly segments in the plains, and that the percentage of votes there was higher than in the Hills.
Party sources said that initially, they thought Mr Bhutia would be able to make up for the loss in the Hills with gains in the plains if the BJP candidate secures a margin of 1.5 lakh in the Hills. They also calculated that the GJMM-backed BJP candidate would not be able to bag the around 3 lakh votes, which they had achieved in 2009.
However, Left leaders have come to a conclusion that the GJMM had recovered its position in the Hills in the last three days from the polling date and that it would be able to bag a sizeable margin to take on the opponents in the plains.
Sources said the Trinamul was able to coax the administration into deploying a less number of central armed forces in the plains than in the Hills.
The number of central forces scheduled to be deployed in the plains was cut short and the “surplus” sent back to the Hills to cover cent percent polling stations to see to it that the GJMM does not rig votes.
The voters’ turnout showed that the percentage of polls was significantly higher in the four plain Assembly segments than the three segments in the Hills.
Even GJMM leader and Kalimpong MLA, Harka Bahadur Chhetri, expressed concerns after he came to know that the polling percentage in Siliguri, Matigara-Naxalbari and Phansidewa was on an average of 81, 85 and 88 respectively.
Though Trinamul activists allegedly managed to secure votes in their bases in the absence of the Central Para Military Forces at many places in the plains, the party sources expressed concern about a division of the vote bank, which were intact in 2011, among he three political parties--BJP, Congress and Trinamul.
“Even the BJP has managed to erode the Left vote bank in many polling stations. But a section of the Congress supporters cast votes to the CPI-M candidate in Naxalbari and Phansidewa when they realized that the party candidate Sujay Ghatak’s prospects were bleak,” an INTTUC leader said.
According to GJMM sources, Mr Ahluwalia managed 70 percent votes from its base, while the rest had been divided among others, including the Independent candidate Mahendra P Lama in the plains.
Political observers now wonder how Mr Bhutia would make up for the BJP’s huge margin in the Hills.(SNS)