Gurung plans to meet PM on statehood - Morcha gears up for Delhi dharna

Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri, Bimal Gurung and Darjeeling municipality
chairman Amar Singh Rai at the party meeting in Darjeeling . (Suman Tamang)

(Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, March. 2: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today claimed that Bimal Gurung would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the one-point agenda of creating Gorkhaland when the GTA chief executive would be in Delhi next week to take part in the party's agitation to demand the separate state.

Asked whether an appointment to meet the prime minister had been fixed, Binay Tamang, assistant secretary of the Morcha, said: "He (Gurung) will definitely be meeting the prime minister."

The party held a meeting at the Gorkha Rangamanch Bhavan here today to finalise the details of the proposed nine-day dharna on Gorkhaland at Jantar Mantar in Delhi from March 9.

After the meeting, Tamang said: "It has been decided at the meeting that all three Morcha MLAs, along with almost all GTA Sabha members (47) of the party, will participate in the dharna. Bimal Gurung will be sending a Morcha team to Delhi, a few days before the dharna begins, and they will meet Union ministers. Gurung will, however, leave for Delhi on March 10 to participate in the dharna and he will be meeting the prime minister during his stay in Delhi."

He added: "All the meetings with the central ministers and the Prime Minister will be on the single-point agenda of Gorkhaland."

A Morcha leader who didn't want to be named said the party was confident that the Prime Minister would grant Gurung an appointment.

BJP leader S.S. Ahluwalia was elected to Lok Sabha from Darjeeling with the backing of the Morcha. The hill party is an ally of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and Gurung has met Modi after the latter was nominated as the prime ministerial candidate by the BJP. Gurung had also been invited by the NDA for the swearing-in of Modi.

The planned meeting will be the first official engagement between Modi and Gurung after the former became the Prime Minister.

Tamang said 50 members of the Gorkha Janmukti Vidyarthi Morcha, 10 members each from the Morcha's subdivisional committees of Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong and Mirik and 84 elected members of all four hill municipalities would take part in the dharna.

"Party members from Uttarkhand and Delhi will also be present at the dharna," said Tamang.

Asked about the BJP's manifesto, Tamang said: "We are aware of the content of the BJP's Lok Sabha election manifesto. We also know Modi had said the dreams of the Gorkhas are his dreams. We want our dreams to be fulfilled as early as possible."

The manifesto reads: "... the BJP reiterates that it will sympathetically examine and appropriately consider the long pending demands of the Gorkhas, the Adivasis and other people of Darjeeling district and the Dooars region; of the Kamtapuri, Rajbongshi and other people of North Bengal (including recognition of their language); and will take initiatives for the permanent solution of the long pending issues of the Bodos and other tribals of Assam, the people of Sikkim, Leh, Ladakh, Andaman & Nicobar, Lakshadweep and other such neglected regions."

During the Morcha's last engagement with Union home minister, Rajnath Singh, in November, the party had claimed that he had told the party delegation that a committee would be formed to examine the Gorkhaland demand.

There has been no word on the formation of the committee yet. After the reported assurance, the Morcha had postponed its Delhi agitation, which had been scheduled for December, 18, 19 and 20.