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The hills are alive with Didigiri

The ground for the battle was prepared last month when the election to four hill municipalities — Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik — were held

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Mamata Banerjee
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Never have the Darjeeling hills in Bengal turned into an arena of a curious political battle. Mamata Banerjee is challenging the hegemony of hill parties, which have traditionally controlled politics and lives of people there since Independence. So long, mainstream political parties never got a solid foothold and their elected representatives had to seek the support of the dominant hill parties during that time. But with each passing day, the battle is turning into a fierce one.

For the past one week or so, the political heat has prepared the ground for the final face-off between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), the dominant party in the hills, spearheading the slogan for a separate state of Gorkhaland. The ground for the battle was prepared last month when the election to four hill municipalities — Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik — were held. The results made a history of sorts: for the first time, a mainstream political party got a firm foothold in wresting the Mirik municipality and making substantial inroads in the traditional vote bank of the GJM. While the GJM retained its control in the other three municipalities, the TMC's vote percentage increased substantially. While in Kalimpong, the TMC and its ally got more votes than GJM, in Kurseong, the TMC bagged 42 per cent of the vote share. One piece of statistic defined the TMC inroads: in the 2011 elections, out of the total 84 seats, 79 went to the GJM uncontested. This time, there were Opposition candidates in each one of them.

Mamata Banerjee reached Darjeeling on Monday night amid much drama. As she approached Mirik to attend a victory rally there, 6 km away from the spot, few men started chanting slogans against her and flashed black flags. She asked the driver to stop the car and shouted at the youngsters: "If you have the guts, come in front of me." Her open challenge startled the protesters and they ran for life. A furious Mamata said: "These people don't know that I have fought the violence of the CPI(M) for 34 years and nothing can scare me."

At the Mirik rally, she tore apart the leader of the GJM, Bimal Gurung, without naming him and vowed to bring peace and prosperity in the hills. She threatened to investigate the funds management of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, the local administrative body of the hills run by the GJM. Gurung's party has been protesting in the hills for the past week against "forcible" introduction of Bengali in the curriculum of schools. The state government has, however, clarified that for the hills, Bengali is just an optional subject and the GJM was spreading 'lies'.

The Chief Minister will be staying in the hills for the next few days and on June 8, she will hold her cabinet meeting here to be attended by all top officials and ministers of the state. She wants to prove a point: the TMC has caught the fancy of the common people who want development and are tired of the ceaseless bandhs affecting the entire economy of the region. And she wants to capitalise on that. Mamata is emboldened by the reaction of the common people who queue up along the route of her motorcade during her frequent visits to the hills. They shout slogans in her name and the reactions are often hysterical, prompting her to get off the car, breaching all security protocol, just to shake hands and sign autographs. Perhaps she has started anticipating that the hills would embrace her completely.

This morning, as she was on her regular round of morning walk, she strolled pass the GJM head office in Darjeeling. The GJM workers could not believe their eyes when she stopped and exchanged pleasantries, greeting them warmly. These workers were assembling there to hold a rally against her in the next few hours! This is an example of didigiri of sorts, perhaps.

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