Long marches seem to be the flavour of the season for Opposition political parties and the trend has reached Sikkim, a relatively calm state.
On Thursday, the Pawan Kumar Chamling-led Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) lent support to the Bhaichung Bhutia-led Hamro Sikkim Party (HSP)’s 1,000km statewide “Sikkimey Ekta Yatra (March for Sikkim Unity) from April 6.
The march appears to be inspired by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s engrossing “Bharat Jodo Yatra”.
In fact, HSP president Bhaichung Bhutia, who has given the latest call for the Sikkim march, had participated in the Srinagar leg of the Congress-led yatra during the course of which he had raised some of the demands of Sikkim, including restoration of Nepali seats in the Assembly and the implementation of the Inner-Line Permit regime to tackle the problem of influx.
Bhutia’s march is for unity among the Sikkimese Nepali, Bhutia and Lepcha communities. The theme of unity among all these communities is gaining traction in Sikkim’s political space with many accusing the ruling Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, which is an ally of the BJP, of doing little to protect the special identity of Sikkimese.
The HSP had announced its yatra “to promote unity and bring people together for a better and brighter Sikkim” on Tuesday, a day before the apolitical Joint Action Council (JAC) had celebrated “Sikkimese Unity Festival” in Gangtok amidst much drama.
While announcing its support to the HSP’s yatra, an SDF release said: “We see that the ideals and objectives with which this is being taken up are relevant at this moment in time in Sikkim. Sikkim is gripped by a state of restlessness which is due to the policies and programs of violence that has been unleashed on the peace loving people of Sikkim.”
The SDF has repeatedly alleged that the recent Supreme Court verdict seeking to redefine the term “Sikkimese” by including the old settlers in it to extend income tax exemption to them on a par with those registered under the Register of Sikkim Subjects was entirely because of the incompetence of the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) government to not invoke the special constitutional status of Sikkim while defending the case.
While JAC’s unity festival might have been driven only by the fears of losing Sikkim’s unique identity, the yatra by HSP is as much an attempt to rally people against SKM and its ally BJP in the runup-to the Assembly elections which are due in a little over a year’s time.
Earlier, the SDF, too, is in midst of its “Sikkim BachaoAbhiyan” and the recently-formed Citizen Action Party, had gone through the labour of holding a statewide“Sikkim Sudhar SanklapaYatra” under the banner of Reform Call before its birth on January 26 this year.
Sikkim’s asmita (identity) and astitwa (existence) are expected to be the opposition’s buzz words in next year’s elections, targeting both the SKMand ally BJP, which surreptitiously has tried to establish a toehold in Sikkim by first engineering the defection of 10 SDF legislators to the party, and then by arm-twisting SKMto part with two of three seats in the byelections that were held in the autumn of 2019.
“Look, the manner in which the definition of the term ‘Sikkimese’ had been sought to be diluted with utter disregard for the letter and spirit of Article 371F of the Constitution is scary for us Sikkimese because we risk losing all our other privileges,” said a senior SDF leader.
