GANGTOK, 17 May: Making
its debut with 10 seats in the Sikkim Legislative Assembly, the Sikkim
Krantikari Morcha was all jubilant today. The party headquarters at Tadong,
Gangtok was brimming with party supporters all gathered to felicitate their
party leader, PS Tamang [Golay] and the 9 others who won from their respective
constituencies. The supporters celebrated their party’s performance with
bursting of crackers and offering khadas to the winners.
The blank draw in South
and West districts is being blamed away on the money power of the ruling front
and some officials and agents who, SKM supporters allege, had sided with the
ruling party. SKM, it may be recalled, could not win any seat in either the
West or South districts and won only one in North Sikkim. Apart from this one
[Kabi Lungchuk] and the Sangha seat, the remaining eight came from East
District’s kitty of 12 seats.
“We are satisfied with
our tally of 10 seats; maybe we could have won a couple of more seats but this
is also good,” said a party supporter in the SKM party headquarters today,
stating that 10 MLAs were enough to counter the ruling front. There was also a
sense of relief that the party had presented a respectable performance.
As for the general public
most people welcomed the development that Sikkim, at last, had an official opposition
representation in the Assembly. There was also curious amazement and wonderment
at how the rest of Sikkim voted since a cluster of six constituencies in and
around Gangtok make up 60% of SKM’s victories.
