Politics
TMC’s Hills Unit Announces Support for Bimal Gurung
The Trinamool Congress (Hills) has announced support to the Bimal Gurug faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in all three assembly seats in the region, bringing all speculations to an end.
The ruling Trinamool Congress had not announced the candidates for three hill seats in North Bengal while releasing the list of candidates for the rest of the 291 seats for the ongoing West Bengal assembly election. TMC supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had left it to the party’s hill unit to decide on these three seats.
There were speculations about the hill TMC supporting the Binay Tamang faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha. But bringing all speculations to an end, hill TMC president, Lal Bahadur Rai announced to support Bimal Gurung in this election at a meeting at Kalimpong on Saturday. Shanta Chhetri, the TMC district president, was also present in the meeting and supported the decision.
The experts are saying that the hill TMC has decided to do so as Binay Tamang promised to support the TMC in the hills, but later decided to fight the election independently. On the other hand, TMC always has the necessary support from Bimal Gurung and his followers.
In December, Bimal Gurung had announced his support for TMC in the upcoming Assembly election. Since the announcement of the election, Gurung has been supporting the TMC. He has been campaigning in support of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the Terai plains.
Lal Bahadur Rai recently, said that they are supporting Gurung because he is working for them. The main fight however is against the BJP. And they won’t allow BJP in the hills.
Roshan Giri, the president of GJM (Bimal) too is satisfied with this decision. He thanked the hill TMC for their decision.
The GJM has a stronghold in Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and Jalpaiguri. It’s difficult for any mainstream political party to win in North Bengal without the support of GJM. There 54 assembly segments in North Bengal, where the Gorkha voters could be the decisive factor.
