Anit Thapa’s Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) flexed their win for the board of directors’ polls at Darjeeling District Central Cooperative Bank (DDCCB) election, setting the tone for the upcoming Bengal Assembly polls.

The BGPM won all the 11 directors’ seats in the election held on Saturday.

“This was an important election for us….This election touches the villages of the hills. The results prove that the trust of the people on the BGPM has increased,” said Thapa, who apart from being the president of the BGPM is also the chief executive of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration.

In the GTA area that comprises parts of Darjeeling district and the Kalimpong district, there are 388 cooperative societies with each cooperative having members between 300 to 500 on an average.

A representative of each of the cooperative votes for the director.

Thapa said that since he formed the party, they had contested three major election and won all of them in the hills.

“We won the GTA election, the panchayat election and now this election, after our party was formed,” said Thapa.

The BGPM was formed on September 9, 2011.

Thapa appointed BGPM leader Keshav Raj Pokhrel as the chairman of the board of directors while Sanchabir Subba, deputy chief exeutive of GTA was appointed the vice-chairman of the body.

Sources said that the BGPM was trying to the build a momentum with this victory in the run-up to the Bengal Assembly elections which is scheduled to be held less than a year later.

“The party is leaving no stone unturned to highlight this victory,” said an observer.

The Opposition camp in the GTA, Indian Gorkha Janshakti Front (IGJF) helmed by Ajoy Edwards, has also been continuously posting details of its supporters from other parties — including the BGPM — who have been joining their party in recent times.

“In all the seven elections I have led I have never seen this level of support. Among our people there is now a movement for change, for honesty and integrity, and a rejection of corruption, nepotism and opportunism,” Edwards wrote in his verified Facebook account after new supporters joined the party at Sukhia in Darjeeling.

Edwards said that on Sunday, youths from Risheehat-Bloomfield area had joined the IGJF.