Strategically important Darjeeling two other LS seats in North Bengal to go to polls in phase 2

Kolkata, Apr 25 (PTI) Three Lok Sabha constituencies in the northern part of West Bengal, including the strategically important Darjeeling seat, will go to polls in the second phase of elections on Friday.
    The polling for Darjeeling, Balurghat, and Raiganj will decide the electoral fate of two sitting BJP MPs, including BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar, who is seeking re-election from the Balurghat seat. Majumdar is up against veteran TMC leader and Minister Biplab Mitra.

    Amidst a new political alignment, Darjeeling hills are gearing up for another election as the long-pending demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland gains focus, with electoral fortunes hinging on promises of a political solution to the demand.

    The Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat, bordering Nepal, also houses the strategically important Chicken’s Neck or Siliguri corridor connecting the northeastern states with mainland India.

    The picturesque Darjeeling, often referred to as the queen of the hills and known for its tea, timber and tourism industries, is up for a four-cornered contest.
    Sitting BJP MP Raju Bista is contesting against party MLA from Kurseong, Bishnu Prasad Sharma, who is running as an independent after his demand to field a "Bhumiputra" was not accepted by the BJP leadership.
    Bista, supported by the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) and the Bimal Gurung faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), aims for a second term.

    Bista is an exception who has been repeated as the BJP candidate from the hills, as its previous MPs Jaswant Singh and S S Ahluwalia in 2009 and 2014 had only a single tenure.
    Unlike previous elections when the BJP with the support of GJM had a free run in the hills, Bista is up against formidable opposition as Congress, which has joined hands with the Hamro Party, has fielded Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh’s Munish Tamang, who is also supported by the CPI (M).
    The TMC has nominated Gopal Lama, supported by Anit Thapa’s Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), which controls the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).
    Bista won the seat in 2019 by a margin of 4.5 lakh votes.
    With the Lok Sabha polls approaching, the issue of a permanent political solution (PPS) has gained momentum. BJP promises a permanent political solution within the next five years.
    The Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which switched alliances from the TMC, issued a 'final ultimatum' to the saffron camp, demanding a resolution to the hill problem as a pre-condition for their support in the elections.
    In the 2021 assembly polls, the BJP had bagged six seats whereas the TMC had bagged just one in the Lok Sabha constituency.
    In Raiganj, BJP has nominated Kartick Paul to compete against TMC's Krishna Kalyani, who was a BJP MLA who had switched over to the TMC.
    The constituency, once known as a Congress stronghold and backyard of the late former union minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, will witness a three-cornered contest with Left-Congress alliance candidate Ali Imran Ramz also known as Victor.
    In the previous election, BJP's Debasree Chaudhuri had bagged the seat by defeating TMC’s Kanaia Lal Agarwal by a margin of over 60,000 votes.
    In Balurgat Lok Sabha seat in Bengal’s Dakshin Dinajpur district, a keen and closely fought electoral contest awaits where BJP state president Majumdar seeks re-election and is up against a formidable rival in TMC candidate Biplab Mitra, a brilliant organiser, and presently a member of the TMC ministry.
    Sukanta Majumdar, who made his electoral debut in 2019, had secured 5,39,317 votes, establishing a lead of 33,293 votes and wresting the seat from TMC’s Arpita Ghosh.
    Balurghat, once a stronghold of Left Front constituent RSP, which won the seat consecutively from 1984 to 2009, is also pitted for a three-cornered contest with Left-Congress alliance candidate Joydep Siddhanta in the fray.
    In 2021 assembly polls, out of the seven assembly segments in the Balurghat constituency, four were won by the TMC and three by the BJP.
    A total of 51,17,955 voters - 26,07,389 men, 25,10,356 women, and 210 third-gender individuals - are eligible to vote across 5,298 polling stations. Of the 47 candidates, three are women.
    The Election Commission of India stated that 98% of the polling stations in the three Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal are "critical". Central forces will be deployed at all polling stations in these seats.
    The poll body will deploy 73 companies of central forces at Balurghat, 60 in Raiganj, 51 each in Darjeeling and Islampur, 21 in Siliguri, and 16 in Kalimpong. Each company comprises around 100 personnel. Additionally, 12,983 state police personnel will be deployed.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)