Doyen of Sikkim’s politics stares at end of career, loss of 'longest-serving CM' record

Pawan Kumar Chamling, who already had eight terms as an MLA, had contested in two constituencies – Namcheybung and Poklok Kamrang – this time. He, however, lost in both constituencies to the SKM’s candidates.

Kolkata: Pawan Kumar Chamling’s hope to win a seat in the legislative assembly of Sikkim for the ninth time was dashed on Sunday. He lost in both the constituencies he was contesting in as a candidate of his Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), which finally could win just one seat in the 32-member House.

That may not be the end of gloom and doom for Chamling. The septuagenarian may also lose the record of being the country’s longest-serving chief minister soon if the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) wins the assembly elections in Odisha on Tuesday and Naveen Patnaik continues at the helm of the state government.

Chamling’s long political career on Sunday appeared to be close to its end as Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang’s Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) won all but one seat in the state assembly.

Tamang, a former teacher, began his political career with the SDF, which sent him to the state assembly in 1994. He served as a minister in the SDF government led by Chamling for three consecutive terms from 1994 to 2009. He, however, revolted against Chamling when he was denied a cabinet berth after the state assembly elections in 2009. He launched a ‘Parivartan Sankalpa Yatra’, which culminated at ‘Rolu Picnic’ – a conclave held at a playground in south Sikkim on December 21, 2009.

It was from ‘Rolu Picnic' that Tamang formally waged a rebellion against Chamling. He launched the SKM in February 2013 and led the new party to win 10 seats in 2014 and 17 seats in 2019, when the SDF’s two-and-a-half-decade-long rule came to its end.

“Pawan Chamling had already been defeated in 2019,” Tamang, the SKM supremo and the chief minister of Sikkim since the last state election, said in Gangtok on Sunday. "We live in a democracy. We did in five years what they (SDF) could not do in 25 years. That’s why they lost," he added.

Chamling, who already had eight terms as an MLA, had contested in two constituencies – Namcheybung and Poklok Kamrang – this time. He, however, lost in both constituencies to the SKM’s candidates – Bhoj Raj Rai beat him by 3,063 votes in Poklok Kamrang while Raju Basnet defeated him by 2,256 votes in Namcheybung.

Chamling took over as the chief minister of Sikkim on December 12, 1994. He broke the record of Jyoti Basu, who had held the office of the chief minister of West Bengal for 8539 days. By the time he left office on May 26, 2019, after his SDF was voted out of power, Chamling spent 8932 days as the chief minister of the state. Patnaik, on the other hand, has been the chief minister of Odisha for 8856 days and, if the BJD wins the state assembly elections, he is likely to continue at the top office and will break the record of Chamling in just two-and-a-half months.

The 11th legislative assembly of Sikkim will soon hold its first session without Chamling being an MLA for the first time in four decades.