Former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, 61, has been reaching out to people across the Darjeeling belt in West Bengal for the past several months, holding various programmes under the aegis of his NGO Darjeeling Welfare Society, which he had floated in May 2023.

Shringla’s public outreach has triggered speculations over his foray into electoral politics, with the Lok Sabha polls barely a few months away.

There has been a growing buzz in local political circles that Shringla might be fielded by the BJP from the Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency in the upcoming polls. This was fuelled after the BJP’s Kurseong MLA Bishnu Prasad Sharma recently urged the party leadership to give ticket from Darjeeling to a local candidate or “Bhumiputra” (son of the soil)”. He even threatened to contest as an Independent candidate if the party nominates an “outsider” from the constituency.

The sitting BJP MP from Darjeeling, Raju Bista, is a Gorkha leader who hails from Manipur.

A prominent Gorkha face, Shringla hails from the Darjeeling hills. He traces the roots of both his parents to Darjeeling, where he has ancestral properties although he spent most of his time away from the hills since his school days.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Shringla said the talks about him contesting the polls were “speculation”. “It is what it is – speculation. I am undertaking social work in my home area among my people,” he said.

In a lecture that he delivered at North Bengal University last Friday, Shringla highlighted the importance of Siliguri, saying that Darjeeling, Siliguri and Sikkim can become a new golden triangle for tourism in the region. The ex-diplomat has maintained that he would work for the people of the region. On Saturday, he visited a private hospital and then travelled to Panighata on Siliguri’s outskirts. He also met local people and assured them of help so that the Panighata tea estate, closed for months, could be reopened.

Shringla, who was India’s ambassador to the US during 2019-2020, had been the foreign secretary from 2020 to 2022. As the Indian envoy in US, he had worked closely with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the “Howdy Modi” event held in Texas in 2019. He also served as the chief coordinator of India’s G-20 presidency in 2023.

The BJP has been winning the Darjeeling seat since 2009, although none of its MPs here have been local candidates or even renominated. Before Bista, the BJP’s MPs from the seat were Jaswant Singh (2009-2014) and S S Ahluwalia (2014-2019).

Reacting to the possibility of Shringla being fielded from Darjeeling, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar said, “We don’t know which faction of the BJP is projecting him as a possible party candidate. There are several factions in the BJP which are fighting among themselves to project their respective candidates. Even the state BJP leaders are not sure who will finally be their candidate. No one from the BJP has announced his name as a possible candidate. Therefore, we are not bothered about such speculations. The BJP MPs who won from Darjeeling have always deserted the people there. They did not work. Their ploy will not work this time.”

A senior BJP leader, however, said: “The party central leadership will decide the candidate for the Darjeeling seat, which our party has been winning since 2009. We will not make any premature remarks on issues like this. We give no importance to such speculations.”

The TMC is also expected to ramp up its attempts to clinch the seat in the polls. The party led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been expanding its footprint in the Darjeeling hills, with Anit Thapa-led

local outfit, Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), being aligned to it. The BGPM has been in power in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) since 2022.

The Congress has also been making a bid to stage a comeback into the Darjeeling politics, with prominent Gorkha leader and ex-GTA chairperson Binay Tamang having joined the party fold. The

Congress recently appointed Tamang, a former TMC leader, as a state party general secretary and “in-charge of the hills”, signalling its intention to field him from the seat in the polls.