No Opposition in state, but Sikkim CM Tamang faces environmental challenges

CM Prem Singh Tamang leads a state without Opposition in the Assembly, but faces dual challenges of ecological crises and sustainable development

After winning both Assembly by-elections uncontested in October, Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang, known as ‘Golay’, retains the distinction of leading the only state in India with no Opposition in the Assembly. However, politics is the least of his concerns.

 

In the Assembly elections held in May (alongside the Lok Sabha polls), Golay’s Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) won 31 of the 32 seats. In July, the sole Opposition MLA from the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), Tenzing Norbu Lamtha, crossed over to the SKM. 

Golay and his wife, Krishna Kumari Rai, had each contested two seats in May. They vacated one seat each, necessitating the bypolls. Golay contested and won the Soreng-Chakung seat, while his wife secured the Namchi-Singhithang constituency. Golay fielded his son, Aditya (from his first wife, Sharda), from the Soreng seat, while the SKM’s candidate for Namchi-Singhithang was Satish Chandra Rai. Other parties, including the SDF and smaller parties, pulled out from the race.

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had plans to contest the bypolls. However, D R Thapa, president of the BJP’s Sikkim unit, told media: “We have received instructions from the BJP head office in New Delhi not to participate in the bypolls but to concentrate on the ongoing membership drive and strengthening our organisational base.” 

The votes Golay polled in the two constituencies he contested added up to around 21,000. The BJP’s total votes across the 31 seats it fought from stood at 19,500. 

So, it’s not politics that keeps him awake at night. His biggest challenge is anticipating and managing the forces of nature.

In October 2023, Sikkim saw its worst flash flood in recent history when a glacial lake burst, flooding the Teesta River and the downstream Teesta III hydroelectric dam. In August this year, a massive landslide severely damaged the Teesta V hydropower station, a 510 megawatt facility, along with a GIS building at Dipu Data, 20 km southwest of Gangtok. Though no lives were lost, the infrastructure damage was extensive, with blocked roads leaving tourists stranded. 

Between October 2023 and August 2024, the state saw several smaller landslides, leading to political slugfest. Former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh criticised the central government for mismanaging Sikkim's fragile Himalayan ecology by allowing unplanned hydropower projects. He also alleged delays in releasing funds for irrigation and flood mitigation after the 2023 disaster. 

BJP MP from Darjeeling, Raju Bista, countered these claims. “I was taken aback by two things: first, your shocking indifference towards the Darjeeling hills, Terai, Dooars, and Sikkim region; and second, your ‘audacity’ in attempting to shift the blame for the Teesta disaster onto the present government at the Centre,” Bista said in a statement addressing Ramesh, adding that it was the UPA government that approved Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Teesta hydel power projects that is thought to have caused the landslides. 

Golay needed to say nothing: his opposition was fighting the battle for him. 

Prabhakar Rai, director of Sikkim’s Disaster Management Authority, shared a different perspective. Speaking to Business Standard from Gangtok, he said Sikkim has been used to rain, especially during the monsoon. But in the past decade or so, it has turned into days of incessant rain. “It is a deluge. It loosens the top soil, which in turn brings down entire hills.” 

Rai said Sikkim’s four distinct seasons have now been reduced to just two: the rainy season and non-rainy season. When development activities are added to this, the problem is compounded. “We have seen landslides specifically in areas where we have built roads. In our state, we have taken advantage of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana to link small villages by roads. But this has also caused landslides.” 

Sikkim is looking forward to its first rail link — the Sivok-Rangpo railway line, being constructed by IRCON, which involves 14 tunnels. In 2018, the state got its first and only airport at Pakyong, considered a seismically sensitive zone. 

Also, 47 hydropower projects are in various stages of development on the Teesta River in Sikkim and West Bengal. Nine of them have been completed, 15 under construction, and another 28 in the pipeline. 

What about the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority, which is mandatory since 2016 in overseeing afforestation around areas where trees are cut down to build roads and highways? Rai highlighted a peculiar problem in Sikkim. Most of the land is privately owned due to the state’s historical status as a protectorate ruled by the Chogyal before its 1975 merger with India. 

Rai said monitoring afforestation on private land is difficult, and deforestation leads to soil erosion, which in turn increases landslide frequency. 

 

To address these challenges, BJP MP in the Rajya Sabha, Dorjee Tshering Lepcha, recently called for a Green Bonus and a special financial package for Sikkim in light of its environmental vulnerabilities. However, Professor Mahendra Lama, who is leading a team to prepare the North East Region Vision 2035 for NITI Aayog, said Sikkim’s development model needs an overhaul. 

The per capita income of Sikkim in 2023-24 is Rs 7.07 lakh, an increase of 13.7 per cent over 2022-23, according to the state Budget 2024-25, presented by the chief minister in August. In 2023-24, Sikkim’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) grew at 8.5 per cent, compared to 8 per cent in 2022-23. 

“Sikkim should have been a model of development in terms of structural composition, employment generation, institutionalised progress, availability of local entrepreneurship and skills, and more importantly, development budgets,” Lama said. Instead, the state suffers from the steady outflow of development benefits. Lama cites the example of agriculture. 

“Sikkim’s most valuable cash crop, cardamom, has developed a value chain wherein farmers receive hardly 10 to 20 per cent of total realisations as the supplier of raw cardamom. The rest of the value chain, including the last critical segment of processed spices, ingredients in pan parag and pharmaceuticals, remains outside the state boundary and beyond the purview of traditional farmers. The agents in value additions, merchants and partners in market disposal, usurp 80 to 90 per cent of this value chain realisation. Sikkim was one of the highest global producers of cardamom,” he said, calling for a reimagined development model for Sikkim. 

In the meantime, Golay, free from the burden of political opposition, is struggling to tame nature.