GUWAHATI A legislator who helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enter the 32-member Sikkim Assembly without winning a single seat has been named the party’s candidate for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the Himalayan State.
The nomination for an Upper House berth is seen as a reward for Dorjee Tshering Lepcha who broke away from the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) soon after the 2019 Assembly election along with nine others to join the BJP.
The SDF under Pawan Kumar Chamling had ruled Sikkim for almost 25 years from December 1994 until losing the May 2019 election narrowly to the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM), which won 17 seats.
