BJP Achieves Majority In Darjeeling Municipality As 17 Councillors Join Party In Delhi

After witnessing major success in West Bengal in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now consolidated its hold in the hills of the state, achieving a majority in the Darjeeling Municipality, reports The Hindu.

The majority in the 32-member body comes as 17 councillors belonging to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, joined the party in New Delhi.

After revealing the development, BJP leader Mukul Roy talked about his party’s plans to organise a protest in Darjeeling in the near future.

BJP MP from Darjeeling Raju Bista remarked that the councillors had no choice but to travel to Delhi to “say what they could have said in Darjeeling”. He lambasted the Trinamool government for misusing its powers over the police in West Bengal.

The Darjeeling hills have historically been a hotbed of frustration with the state government in Kolkata; owing to major ethnic and cultural differences with the rest of the state, the local people have often vocally demanded the creation of a separate state of ‘Gorkhaland’.