All-party meet today on new district Kalimpong

Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, June 6: The state government has taken the first concrete step to upgrade Kalimpong subdivision to a district with the Darjeeling district administration calling an all party meeting here tomorrow for their feedback.

Assembly elections were fought in Kalimpong mainly on the district demand plank.

Anurag Srivastava, the district magistrate of Darjeeling, today confirmed that the all-party meeting would be held here tomorrow.

"The purpose of the meeting is to get feedback from all political parties on the new district. A report will then be forwarded to the personnel department," he said.

The meeting has been scheduled for 4pm in the district magistrate's conference hall.

Former Kalimpong MLA Harka Bahadur Chhetri, who had left the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to float the Jana Andolan Party and made Kalimpong district one of its prime agendas in the Assembly polls, today thanked Mamata Banerjee.

"At the onset, I would like to thank the chief minister for starting the process... I am told that on May 30, the chief minister had directed the chief secretary and home secretary to start the process and in less than a week, a meeting has been called. This should be a lesson for the Morcha. One needs to deliver rather than make promises," he said.

Harka said even though he would not be able to attend the meeting, other JAP leaders would be present in full strength.

Roshan Giri, the general secretary of the Morcha, said his party would be represented at the meeting.