Darjeeling Lok Sabha Elections

Darjeeling Lok Sabha Constituency is one of 42 parliamentary constituencies of the state of West Bengal. Darjeeling Lok Sabha Constituency was formed prior to the 1957 elections.

The Darjeeling Parliamentary constituency (constituency number 4) comprises of seven assembly segments, two of which are reserved for the SC category and one is reserved for the ST category.

The electors in the Darjeeling Lok Sabha Constituency will cast their votes on April 18 in the second phase of 2019 Lok Sabha election.

SS Ahluwalia of the BJP is the sitting Member of Parliament from this constituency.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Ahluwalia defeated the All India Trinamool Congress candidate and noted footballer – Bhai Chung Bhutia.

Ahluwalia got 488,257 votes as compared to Bhai Chung Bhutia who got 291,018 votes.

There were a total number of 1,437,126 electors here last time out of which 1,142,009 cast their votes. The voter turnout recorded here was 79.46 %.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the primary electoral contest for the seat is between the All India Trinamool Congress, Left Front, Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress. Though several other regional parties would also contest for the seat.

This time BJP has named Raju Singh Bisht for the seat. To defeat the current MP in the Lok Sabha election 2019, AITC has fielded Amar Singh Rai while Left Front has fielded Saman Pathak.

Meanwhile, the Congress party has fielded Shankar Malakar from the Darjeeling seat.

As per the ECI website, there are about 12,15,464 voters in the parliamentary constituency, among them 5,87,824 are females while 6,27,640 are males.

The average literacy rate is 93 per cent, and the main occupation of people is agriculture, tea plantation, tourism and trade of essential commodities. The female to male ratio is 1005.

In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, AITC bagged 34 seats – gaining 15 more than 2009, while CPI(M) could win only two seats – Raigunj and Murshidabad. Congress emerged victorious on four seats, and BJP opened their account from Asansol and Darjeeling.

Lok Sabha election 2019 will take place in seven phases across the country – on April 11, April 18, April 23, April 29, May 6, May 12 and May 19. The results would be declared on May 23.

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