The Bhartiya Janata Party takes the poll winds off from Nano and Petroleum Chemical & Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) in West Bengal fielding former Union minister Jaswant Singh as the candidate from Darjeeling with the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha?s support.

While most of TV talk shows and local media reports were shrouded with pull out of Nano from the state and atrocities at Nandigram for setting up a PCPIR, from Friday the problem in the hills took the centre stage. Although the BJP manifesto released in Delhi on Friday did not talk a about a separate Gorkha Land state, the CPI(M), All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and the Congress has started campaign saying that BJP is set to divide Bengal.

Partha Chatterjee of the Trinamool Congress, also the leader of the opposition in the state assembly told FE that it is imperative that BJP and Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) has come to an understanding about forming a separate Gorkha Land.

BJP has always been supportive of forming smaller states, as they did in case of forming Chattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand from Bihar and Uttrakhand from Uttar Pradesh. ?There was no reason for Bimal Gurung to support BJP unless BJP agrees to GJM?s demand. BJP?s agendas are more hidden then that they come out with,? Chatterjee said.

Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress, an erstwhile ally of the BJP, besides attacking the CPI(M) here in the state is also bashing the BJP saying that it has joined hands in the state with the Left. Mamata Banerjee on Friday at a public rally in Burdwan went to the extend of saying that the CPI(M) cadres are writing walls for BJP in the state. ?Casting vote for the BJP here means casting vote for the CPI(M), she said. Left Front chairman and also a politburo member Biman Bose said that BJP has taken a malicious way of stepping into Bengal. ?It is for the Left Front that BJP could capture ground in the state?, although Mamata Banerjee tried to pave a path for them.

Fearing that the Bengali sentiment would go against BJP on this issue, Banerjee is trying to pose hard against the BJP, Bose said. However, the West Bengal unit of the BJP seems to be a divided house on the issue. While Samik Bhattacharya, one of BJP?s three general secretaries said that the decision of the central leadership to field Jaswant Singh in Darjeeling with GJM support will hammer on the prospects of the party in South Bengal, Rajkamal Pathak, a spokesperson, said this would not happen as BJP has not agreed to the GJM demand of a separate Gorkhaland. The hills, under the Left rule, have been neglected for a long time and Gurung could actually keep faith on BJP because of its pro-development stance. ?BJP is in favour of more autonomy in the state,? Pathak said. Political observers felt that even as there were chances of sentiments swelling up against the BJP in the entire state except the hills, BJP as a marginal party here has nothing to loose. Instead its chances of gaining the Darjeeling seat is high as against nothing in the state.

However, Pathak said constituencies like that of Dum Dum, Barasat, Uluberia and Krishnanagar were prospective seats for the BJP in the state. But fielding Jaswant Singh from Darjeeling would not matter anything to these prospects. Jaswant Singh is likely to come to Darjeeling on April 7.