Click to play videoKolkata: Jaswant Singh has given up the Rajasthnani turban to don the Gorkha cause in Darjeeling and the BJP is banking on him to be their first MP from West Bengal. The party has promised the Gorkhas that their demand for a separate Gorkhaland will be considered - a demand the Congress had turned down.
However, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee says that the BJP will not be able to deliver.
"BJP is now trying to catch fish in troubled water. But their support will not change the situation in Darjeeling. You know the Constitutional position and then we have to pass a resolution in the Assembly. A resolution for the bifurcation of the state will never be passed by the state Assembly," he said.
The BJP state leadership itself is divided on the issue and for now prefers to keep it ambiguous.
West Bengal BJP Leader, Rajkamal Pathak says, "We have said that we will sympathetically examine those problems. We have never assured that we will give in to the Gorkhaland demand immediately."
That may not be music to the ears of the Gorkhas who have pinned their hopes on the BJP.
Soon after the election euphoria dies down, it would be payback time for the BJP to reciprocate the Gorkha support and the BJP-Gorkha bonhomie may well take a beating if the BJP fails to address the demand for Gorkhaland in the manner the Gorkha leaders want it to be.
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