Why Gorkha leader Binay Tamang joined Congress

Gorkha leader and former Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) chief Binay Tamang joined the Congress in Siliguri in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district on November 26. He was inducted by state Congress chief and MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Tamang, who was with the Trinamool Congress between December 2021 and December 2022, quit Mamata Banerjee’s party, saying it had backtracked on the nine-point agenda promised to him for fulfillment. 

The 57-year-old leader from Darjeeling said he had multiple meetings with the Congress national leadership between May and June this year. He also wrote a letter to the Congress high command on June 22, putting forward the issues he thinks the party should look into. “From a national perspective, the Congress is currently the second-largest party in India. The BJP’s time is up. The Congress will come to power in 2024, and they alone can work for development of the hills,” Tamang told INDIA TODAY.

“Since Independence, only four prime ministers have visited Darjeeling and three of them are from the Congress. Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi visited the hills and all the good things in Darjeeling were done by the Congress,” Tamang added. He felt this showed the dedication of the party towards the people of the hills, which is why he decided to work with them.

In the past 11 months, since quitting the Trinamool Congress, Tamang had met leaders of multiple parties—both national and regional—in Delhi. He said only the Congress “showed genuine desire to work for the people of North Bengal”.

The Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency has been electing a BJP parliamentarian since 2009, with the hope that the party will take up the demand of statehood for the Gorkhas. The support for the BJP was driven by the Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha. However, Tamang, who was once Gurung’s close aide, said the BJP has not delivered on its promises.

Post a bloody agitation in the hills, led by Gurung in 2017, the two leaders fell apart and Tamang drew closer to the Trinamool. He was also made the chief of the GTA with Anit Thapa positioned as his deputy. As Thapa rose to become the chief of the GTA, Tamang quit the administrative body and started working full-time with the Trinamool. But it was all over within a year.

“The nine-point agenda I had demanded from the Trinamool did not even include the issue of Gorkhaland. But I did speak for the land rights of the Gorkhas. I waited for a year for them to act, but they didn’t,” Tamang alleged.

Tamang did not clarify if he had spoken to the Congress leadership on the Gorkhaland issue. When asked, he neither confirmed nor denied but said he has brought up several issues. “These issues are related to the welfare of the people of Darjeeling, Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and even Coochbehar,” he said.

On why it took almost a year for him, since quitting the Trinamool Congress, to decide on the next course of action, Tamang said he was preparing the ground for the work he has to do. He is aware that the Congress has negligible organisational presence in the district of the state north to Malda and Murshidabad. “But we will work everything out,” he said.

“You will see who has how many people with them,” Tamang said, reacting to the criticism from opponents that he has lost his popularity. He also said he is not considering contesting the Lok Sabha elections “at the moment”.

Tamang is the Congress’s second significant induction in West Bengal in the past 12 months or so. In October 2022, former Forward Bloc MLA Ali Imran Ramz (Victor) had joined the party.

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, said Tamang’s induction will make the Congress stronger in the hills. He added that the problems of the hills were resolved by the Congress earlier too and it would continue doing so.

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