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SDF sweeps Sikkim

The ruling Sikkim Democratic Front has romped home with a two-third majority in the 32-member Sikkim assembly by bagging 22 of the 27 results declared today.

Headed by Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling, the SDF has made a clean sweep in its strongholds of Other Backward Classes- dominated south and west Sikkim. It also made a mark in the opposition Sikkim Sangaram Parishad's bastion of the upper caste Nepalese dominated east Sikkim.

The SDF retained all the seven assembly segments in south Sikkim, a repeat performance of the 1994 polls.

The party has already bagged seven out of the nine assembly seats in west Sikkim.

The lone woman nominee of the party wrested the Yoksum seat which was held by the Congress-backed independent Ashoke Kumar Subba in 1994. The win also sealed the fate of former Congress chief minister Sanchaman Limboo Subba.

Two results for the remaining two seats in west Sikkim are still awaited.

The SSP chief and former chief minister Nar Bahadur Bhandari who was contesting from two constituencies, has already won in the Rhenock seat and is fighting a neck-to-neck fight in Soreng till reports last came in.

Chief Minister Pawan Chamling retained his home constituency of Damthang in south Sikkim for the fifth consecutive time romping home with a record margin over 3,000 votes against the SSP candidate.

The three tribal reserved seats of Rumtek, Martam and Assam-Linjey in east Sikkim, the party has wrested from the SSP.

The party also retained two of the three tribal seats in north Sikkim.

The National Party which contested all 32 assembly seats is yet to open its account. The party had won two seats in 1994.

Prominent among those who faced electoral defeat was the working president of SSP and wife of Nar Bahadur Bhandari, Dil Kumari Bhandari. Bhandari had to face her second consecutive defeat in the assembly polls. In 1994 she lost in the prestigious south Sikkim trading town seat of Jorethang-Nayabazar. This time state tourism minister Garjaman Gurung humbled her in Temi-Tarku in the same district.

The SSP's Jai Kumar Bhandari made history of sorts by wresting Pacheykhani in east Sikkim by a razor-thin margin of five votes. Incidentally, Nar Bhandari had lost the seat to the SDF nominee by a margin of 12 votes in the 1994 assembly polls.

UNI

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