Why is Mirik Result Important for us?

Writes: Bicky Sharma

17th of this month marked an important day for us. The results of the municipality elections were declared on the day. It was the day that the choice and the preference of the people were to be known. There were a lot of speculations in the air about the results, everyone having their own prediction.

The results however took everyone by surprise. Of all the municipalities, the ones that came up with surprising results were Kalimpong and Mirik. The Kalimpong results were as expected, but the scale of victory (of GJM) was magnanimous. On the other hand, Mirik results were also somewhat that most of us have had somewhere expected, but we however had a hope that TMC would not see a victory among our people.

Everyone, since the results, have had their own share of opinion about the results and for most of them in Darjeeling, the result of Mirik was “disappointing”. Every other person has something harsh to say and Mirik today as they say is a traitor.
Well, I say that the TMC victory in Mirik is important for us and there are strong reasons why I think so.

First of all, voting for one’s preference is no treason. A voter has his share of right to decide who he thinks should lead him and he should be the one to reap the fruits of his choice which would bear good governance and also he should be the one to bear the consequences if in case he has had been persuaded to make a wrong decision. That is the beauty of democracy.

The TMC victory in Mirik can be taken as a very strong indicator of the position where all the political parties stand and has exposed the vulnerability that the hills politics is prone to. It is the first time since ages that a non hill party could secure a victory in any of the polls in Darjeeling. It should lesser indicate the strength of the winning party; rather it should more account for the weakness of our regional parties and also our people.
In fact, it is better that we lost a municipality in time than for reaching to the saturation point and losing all our seats in a major election. Perhaps all our regional parties can account for their mistakes and learn from this loss. It gives everyone a reason to think. It brings before us the fact that no party now can take the people lightly and still hope to win. This election has given the hills an opposition and now there is no taking for granted. It is time that all the political parties perform or perish.

The election saw a lot of gimmicks. While GJM was concentrating more on Darjeeling and Kalimpong, TMC was building its root at Mirik. The CM’s visit followed by the promise of land rights might have been persuading to the people. As most of us know, the promise of land rights is as good as the promise of changing Darjeeling to Switzerland, but then that doesn’t matter. The promise lead them to a victory. Actually, the baseless promise wasn’t the only factor for their victory, the main factor was that the other parties did not care enough to stand and say that it is a false promise. The votes were fed on hopes and what else would a poor man need than hope.

Whatever the situation be now, the promise has given them the municipality and that isn’t changing for the next municipality elections, even if the land rights are granted or not.

We had 3 main parties contesting the elections - GJM, GNLF and TMC. GNLF was in alliance with TMC. So GJM was contesting against the alliance of GNLF and TMC. GJM was evidently under performing in Mirik and they had no proper propaganda to tackle the land rights promise. The only thing GJM had intact in Mirik was their political heritage and name.
Now, it is the litmus test for all the parties and also the people of Mirik. First of all, GNLF as a party should decide on their stance with TMC. They are to decide if their dependence on TMC is rather helping them to build up or on contrary threatening their existence in the long run of politics. A personal thought is that GNLF could rather preserve and expand their dignity instead of allying with TMC. What we see now is that GNLF has already started getting a sour feeling towards TMC.

GJM as a party should also start performing to mitigate the effects of its mistakes. They should learn and understand where they lack, and start working for the same. If they can regain the municipality back or not should now depend on their work and not their name.

However, most important of all is that now we should see one of our municipalities run by an outside party. We should now witness if they have the morality to stand by their promise. We should now for ourselves witness how it should be to be governed by an outside party. What it is like to be a part of the decisions that can hurt us – the most recent example being of the inclusion of Bengali as a language in all the schools.
At the end of the day, I see the Mirik result to be important for us. It serves as an indicator to all the political parties and the people.

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