BJP Bengal chief holds meeting with GJM leader Roshan Giri; alliance speculation ahead of polls

Kolkata, Aug 28 (PTI) The BJP’s search for fresh allies ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections appears to have reached the Darjeeling hills, with state party president Samik Bhattacharya recently holding a closed-door meeting with Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leader Roshan Giri.

Giri, who submitted a memorandum to Bhattacharya, also extended an invitation to him to visit the Hills, a gesture that has fuelled speculation of a renewed understanding between the saffron camp and the GJM.

The meeting took place on Wednesday at the state BJP office in Salt Lake near here.

While Bhattacharya maintained the talks were aimed at “bringing development to the Hills”, he stopped short of clarifying whether a formal alliance was on the cards.

The meeting comes weeks after GJM supremo Bimal Gurung and Giri had met Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari here on July 31, a development political observers described as “significant” given the approaching state polls.

For the BJP, desperate to unseat Mamata Banerjee in 2026, regaining lost ground in the Hills and Dooars regions is crucial. The saffron party has suffered organisational setbacks in the tea belt, while ties with its Kurseong MLA Bishnu Prasad Sharma remain strained.

Against this backdrop, the recent back-to-back meetings between GJM leaders and top Bengal BJP figures are seen as a tactical reset.

The GJM has a history of swinging between overt alliances and tacit support for the BJP during elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Gurung campaigned openly for BJP candidate Raju Bista.

In the 2021 assembly elections, it forged an alliance with the TMC, but the BJP swept elections in the Hills, whereas in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, it again backed the saffron party’s sitting MP Bista, who retained the seat with GJM support, only to distance itself from the BJP after the polls.

Political circles believe the party’s renewed proximity to the BJP could once again prove decisive in north Bengal’s electoral arithmetic.

Though both camps have avoided making explicit commitments, the optics of Giri’s meeting with Bhattacharya, following his joint appearance with Gurung alongside Adhikari, have triggered talk of a fresh “understanding” between the GJM and BJP ahead of the 2026 assembly polls.

“Talks were held with the sole purpose of development in the Hills,” Bhattacharya said after the meeting, adding to the intrigue without spelling out whether the BJP is firming up a formal pact with the Gorkha outfit.

Politics in the Hills has seen many changes in the last six years, with the GJM, once dominant, now a significantly weakened political entity.

The entry of two new political parties, Hamrao Party led by Ajoy Edwards, which won the Darjeeling Municipal polls in 2022, and Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) led by Anit Thapa, which swept the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) polls in June 2022, shifted focus to providing basic amenities and livelihoods, pushing the demand for a new Gorkhaland state to the background.

The Darjeeling Hills, known for tea, tourism, and timber, have experienced bouts of violence since the 1980s due to the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland. The last agitation in 2017 lasted 104 days and left a trail of destruction.

The statehood demand and implementation of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution were major issues in several elections until 2019, stemming from the protracted Gorkhaland movement that began in 1986.

Though the demand for separation from West Bengal is over a century old, the Gorkhaland statehood movement was ignited by GNLF leader Subhash Ghisingh in 1986.

The violent agitation claimed hundreds of lives, culminating in 1988 with the formation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, which governed the region with some autonomy until 2011.

In that year, after the TMC took over from the Left Front after 34 years, the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) was established with Gurung as its chief, following a tripartite agreement between the state, the Centre, and the GJM.

However, peace was short-lived as Gurung led agitations for statehood in 2013 and orchestrated a 104-day-long strike in 2017, accusing the TMC government of attempting to "wipe out" the Gorkha identity. PTI PNT NN